Executives at America Online are learning what it means to be in business with Ted Turner, the company's vice chairman.

Despite having a knack for making insensitive, off-the-cuff remarks about religion and ethnicity, Mr. Turner had largely stayed out of trouble since AOL and Time Warner announced they would merge.

Other than letting it be publicly known that he was unhappy with an AOL Time Warner flow chart that took away his control of his cable empire -- CNN, TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, Turner South -- Mr. Turner had not made a controversial peep.

That ended on Ash Wednesday, when, at a meeting with CNN staff members, he looked out at a crowd speckled with people who had ash on their foreheads in observance of the day.