Ted Turner and Ned Lamont, originally uploaded by Aldon.

New Britain – Tuesday afternoon, as a stop on Ted Turner’s whirlwind speaking tour of Connecticut, Ted, as he insists on being called, together with Ned Lamont spoke to a large group of students and guests at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU).

In a rapid fire chat, Ned, who was introduced as a distinguished professor of political science, started off by introducing Ted, asking a few preliminary questions, and turning it over to a long question and answer question with the crowd.

One of the first questions was what students who are about to graduate from CCSU should consider for their careers. Mr. Turner, who made a fortune off of television, starting with a small UHF channel, and ultimately launching CNN, TBS and owning the Atlanta Braves, suggested staying away from television. There are 200 channels out there already, he said. No, Ted suggested, replacing Mr. McGuire’s line “Plastics” from The Graduate: “Clean Renewable Energy”. He spoke about his own investments in solar and his plans to expand his investments in other forms of clean renewable energy.

Concerning politics, Ted recounted when he met Fidel Castro. He asked Castro why Cuba was operating in Central America, and Castro asked Turner why the United States was operating in Central America. It provided an important underlying theme for his talk. Don’t expect other countries not to do things that the United States is doing.

He returned to this theme later when he spoke about nuclear proliferation. If we want countries to not have nuclear weapons, we need to lead by example. He talked about the 1968 non-proliferation treaty, and read part of it about countries seeking to decrease the number of nuclear weapons and suggested that the United States was doing about as good on that treaty as it had on treaties with Native Americans.

Early on, he spoke about endangered species. When he spoke about ‘godless commies’, a line that received a laugh, he suggested that communists are perhaps more of an endanger species that various animals on the endangered species list.

On the media, he spoke about the importance of news organizations focusing on delivering news, and not on presenting personalities. When asked about media consolidation, he quipped that he only approved of it if he was the one in charge of consolidated media. It was part of a long rambling set of questions that also talked about profits in media, to which Ted asked what profits had to do with media consolidation.

He suggested that it was the Internet that was the demise of newspapers. In a discussion after the main event, he went on to say that the problem is that newspapers haven’t adjusted their business model to deal with the instantaneous and less expensive delivery of news that the Internet provides.

He had a quick witty response to just about every question that was thrown at him, until the final question. He was asked what one thing that he learned over his seventy years did he wish he had learned earlier.

He did not come up with a specific thing that he had learned, but he noted that his greatest regret was that he had three failed marriages. He spoke about having remained on friendly terms with his ex’s and even did a plug for ’33 Variations’ which is now on Broadway starring his ex-wife Jane Fonda.

Always on the run, he spoke briefly with alumni and guests at a special reception before running off to his next event. This nonstop energy has led to many of his greatest successes, but also probably contributed to the demise of his marriages.