{"id":14211,"date":"2026-05-11T11:59:42","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T18:59:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/?p=14211"},"modified":"2026-05-19T12:03:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T19:03:14","slug":"captain-outrageous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2026\/05\/11\/captain-outrageous\/","title":{"rendered":"Captain Outrageous"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/reason.com\/2026\/05\/10\/ted-turner-entrepreneur-of-his-age\/?utm_source=Reason+Magazine&amp;utm_campaign=476f3b6e3a-reason_brand%7Cnew_at_reason%7C2026_05_11&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_31d7ef7f57-476f3b6e3a-588422888\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">from reason<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Ted Turner, Entrepreneur of His Age<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The creative destruction triggered by Ted Turner&#8217;s wild gambits left the tyranny of licensed, bureaucratic TV in rubble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/reason.com\/people\/thomas-w-hazlett\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">THOMAS W. HAZLETT<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/d2eehagpk5cl65.cloudfront.net\/img\/c800x450-w800-q80\/uploads\/2026\/05\/turner-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Ted Turner smoking a cigar and reading a newspaper | Robin Rayne\/ZUMAPRESS\/Newscom\" title=\"Ted Turner smoking a cigar and reading a newspaper\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>(Robin Rayne\/ZUMAPRESS\/Newscom)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ted Turner, who just graduated from this earthly academy at age 87, was a bon vivant,&nbsp;<em>Playgirl<\/em>&#8216;s<em>&nbsp;<\/em>man of the year,&nbsp;and a public embarrassment. He made billion-dollar deals when, you know, a billion was a really big number. He sailed the seas as a champion of the yachting crowd, winning the&nbsp;1977 America&#8217;s Cup aboard the&nbsp;<em>Courageous<\/em>.&nbsp;He married a beautiful actress, made her do the politically incorrect Tomahawk chops to cheer his Atlanta Braves, and cycled through the ideological spectrum from Randian to Mouth of the South to globalist U.N. benefactor to environmentalist rescuing bison. Jane Fonda, his third wife, deemed him a &#8220;romantic swashbuckling pirate&#8221; and &#8220;my favorite ex-husband.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The cartoon character he cultivated was for fun and to amortize the lithium load. His real role was Entrepreneur of His Age. Turner held the lead spear when the Late 20th Century Barbarians stormed the gates of the Old Order in American media. Meeting the moment at the perfect instant\u2014when a &#8220;deregulation wave&#8221; was opening doors long shut\u2014Turner flipped the script on &#8220;public interest&#8221; regulation concocted during the Progressive Era. Intellectuals largely bemoaned the passing of the administrative state, and the Cronkite audience it favored, devoid of controversy and offered as the &#8220;news from nowhere&#8221; (as a CBS executive bragged). But the closed-loop spoon feeding was inimical to freedom, open inquiry, and honest debate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">[ <a href=\"https:\/\/reason.com\/2026\/05\/10\/ted-turner-entrepreneur-of-his-age\/?utm_source=Reason+Magazine&amp;utm_campaign=476f3b6e3a-reason_brand%7Cnew_at_reason%7C2026_05_11&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_31d7ef7f57-476f3b6e3a-588422888\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">click to continue reading at reason<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>from reason Ted Turner, Entrepreneur of His Age The creative destruction triggered by Ted Turner&#8217;s wild gambits left the tyranny of licensed, bureaucratic TV in rubble. THOMAS W. HAZLETT Ted Turner, who just graduated from this earthly academy at age 87, was a bon vivant,&nbsp;Playgirl&#8216;s&nbsp;man of the year,&nbsp;and a public embarrassment. He made billion-dollar deals [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14211"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14212,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14211\/revisions\/14212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}