R.I.P. Ted Turner

Ted Turner has died, at 87. Much like our current president, Turner was one of those classic American characters, a tycoon who was larger than life and not easily constrained by rules or conventions. Cable news, baseball, movies, yachting, world peace, Jane Fonda — his enthusiasms and ideas crisscrossed the landscape of America between the 1970s and the 2000s. He was a textbook example of the guy who walks into every meeting with 19 insane ideas and one stroke of genius, and his ups and downs often depended upon how well the people around him succeeded at talking him out of the insane ones.