Helen Dale is a columnist and commentator who also writes novels. Her first novel, The Hand That Signed the Paper, won the Miles Franklin award in Australia and also exposed Helen to cancel culture in 1995, long before it became what it is today. She and Bridget discuss the impossibility of proving you didn't do something, the fact that all press is no longer good press, how most lobbyists are morally feral, and why most valuable thing about free speech is not what people say, it’s the fact that people can speak. They cover how to react when the mob comes for you, the importance of the secret ballot, the fact that stereotypes don’t exist in a void, and how part of being a grown up is accepting that people will laugh at you.
Full transcript available here: WiW61-HelenDale-Transcript

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Coach Tea is a DJ, producer, podcast personality, and sound engineer for Comedy Central’s Roast Battle. He is also a counselor focusing on the rehabilitation and treatment of young men who have committed crimes. He and Bridget have a fascinating conversation about anarchy, “wokeism,” how unpopular a message of personal responsibility is in 2019, why happiness doesn’t exist without accountability, and how careful you need to be about creating the values systems by which you structure your life. They cover how religion has been hijacked, why trying to impose your moral authority on someone never works, living in a culture that rewards being a victim, how sometimes of “acts of service” are actually self-serving, and have an honest conversation about race, the criminal justice system, interactions with police, and freedom of speech.
Full transcript available here: WiW60-CoachTea-Transcript

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Bret Stephens, op-ed columnist for The New York Times, sits down with Bridget to discuss Trump’s effect on the Republican Party, feeling out of place in your own country, the dangers of a culture that’s so sure of its convictions, mob politics, and how Trump’s behavior is both a symptom and a cause of a form of cultural corrosion. Bret talks growing up in Mexico and the perspective it gave him on the US that most Americans don’t have, and why what we have in the US is relatively rare, difficult to achieve, and extraordinarily easy to lose. He and Bridget cover tolerating behavior you find morally offensive because you realize that the price of intolerance is worse than whatever offense is being perpetrated, the unforgiving nature of writing a weekly column, maintaining the understanding you don’t possess a lock on truth, how antisemitism is like a society’s immune system, the emerging attitude of a hatred of excellence, and his experience of being in Jerusalem on 9/11.
Full transcript available here: WiW59-BretStephens-Transcript

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Dana Goldberg, stand-up comedian, stops by to talk how she got into comedy, bombing in front of Gloria Steinem, the fact that European audiences don’t laugh, and her talent for bonding people with humor. She shares coming out to her parents when she was 18, how they made it an easy experience, and offers her best advice for parents who have children struggling with their sexual identities. She believes you haven’t failed your child until you turn your back on them. She and Bridget discuss Dana’s ability to raise money for worthy causes, their encounters with Rihanna and Meryl Streep in real life, and using comedy as a means to protect yourself.
Full transcript available here: WiW58-DanaGoldberg-Transcript

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Faisal Saeed Al Mutar’s first experience with Americans was during the second Iraq war when a US tank rolled up in front of his house. He shares his incredible story of growing up under Saddam Hussein’s regime, the vaccuum in his neighborhood that was filled by members of Al-Qaeda, blogging against extremism and receiving death threats as a teenager, escaping Iraq, and the ten year journey to becoming an America citizen. He discusses being taken in by a family in Virginia, why he thinks Americans are amazing people, his appreciation of the values America was founded upon – free speech, civil liberties, and freedom of religion – and the importance of the separation of powers. His is the founder of Ideas Beyond Borders, a non-profit that seeks to prevent extremism before it takes root by translating and creating content related to the values that make people less likely to be recruited by extremist organizations. And he shares stories of the heroes he works with across the Middle East who are risking their freedom and lives to help translate content covering controversial or banned ideas, from civil rights, to women’s rights, to evolution, and critical thinking.
Full transcript available here: WiW57-FaisalSaeedAlMutar-Transcript

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Ryan Stout, stand-up comic extraordinaire, shares how he got into stand-up, parsing his college courses for material, the joys of being a stay-at-home husband, and the changing effect of wearing a suit when doing a comedy show. He and Bridget discuss how liberal people used to view artists as a minority community that needed to be protected and now they view them as oppressors, the future of advertising with deep fakes, and how to support comics you like (hint: don’t just tell them they’re going to be famous and walk away). They talk comedy as an art form with an extremely short shelf life, “post comedy,” rape jokes, suicide jokes, laughter as medicine, and how the victimhood mentality is so damaging psychologically that therapy doesn’t work. Learn the truth about “making it” in Hollywood, and why intersectionality is like trying to win in a small d*ck contest. Be sure to check out Ryan’s latest comedy album Man in the Suit.
Full transcript available here: WiW56-RyanStout-Transcript
 

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Melissa Chen (NY Editor, Spectator US) stops by for a brilliant chat that covers a lot of ground. She describes growing up in Singapore in a “benevolent authoritarian state,” feeling liberated in the US, the fact that most Americans take the first amendment for granted, being on the forefront of human genome research, the Pandora’s Box that is CRISPR, and points out that whatever moral concerns we have about gene editing technology, China does not have them. She is currently the Managing Director of Ideas Beyond Borders, a foundation aimed at translating online content into Arabic and making ideas accessible that can challenge extremism before it takes root. They cover tribalism, intuition vs instinct, post-colonial theory, Bridget’s recurring dream, free speech, self-censorship, and designer babies, among other things.
Full transcript available here: WiW55-MelissaChen-Transcript

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Adam Alter, author of Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked, stops by to talk about screen and tech addiction. He and Bridget discuss the billions of dollars that go into keeping us looking at our screens, from game app design to, story formatting, to rolling from one episode into the next. They talk the evolution of binging, the fragmentation of our attention spans, the dopamine overloads we’re being doused with, and the difference between wanting and liking. If you’ve ever been stuck down a YouTube rabbit hole at 3:00am wondering why you didn’t go to bed hours ago, Adam offers some answers and some tips for setting boundaries and breaking unhealthy habits.
Full transcript available here: WiW54-AdamAlter-Transcript

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Yasmine Mohammed, author of Unveiled: How Western Liberals Empower Radical Islam, shares her story of growing up in a fundamentalist Islamic home in Canada. At 13, when she tried to report the abuse she suffered at the hands of her step-father, she was told by a judge “you come from a different culture, and that’s how your family chooses to discipline you, so we just have to accept that.” And here lies the inherent contradiction in the way in which the West views fundamentalist Islam versus other fundamentalist religions, and turns a blind eye to the abuse and suffering of millions of girls and women. She and Bridget discuss how alienating that is, the message those girls receive is “we don’t care about you, you are ‘other.'” They cover the escalation of rape culture, sexual harassment, the problems with celebrating the hijab, the indoctrination of attitudes towards girls and women in Muslim culture, and being called Islamophobic for criticizing a tool and system of oppression. They bond over shared traumatic experiences and discuss their belief that if you can use your own trauma to help others, it has not happened in vain. If you only ever listen to one episode of Walk-Ins Welcome, this is the episode.
Full transcript available here: WiW53-YasmineMohammed-Transcript

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Bridget finally convinced Cousin Maggie to share her story, from a rather idyllic childhood in a small town in Rhode Island, to being raised in a stable environment with active, involved parents, to having a certain expectation about the track her life would follow, until she was completely derailed by depression in college. They discuss the little known realities of suicidal depression, picking up the pieces, the journey back to “normal” and how falling apart wound up being completely freeing. Maggie talks about the warning signs she has to be aware of when she’s sliding into a dark place, how to counteract the slow creep of depression, and how she found her way to LA. They also cover the importance of setting boundaries in your life, the value of life coaches (even though the name is ridiculous), the battle against laziness, and the absolute necessity of maintaining a sense of humor about it all.
Full transcript available here: WiW52-CousinMaggie-Transcript

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