Today's classic Don Wright cartoon

Hotel and restaurant magnate J. Willard Marriott makes plans for an "Honor America Day" celebration on July 4th, 1970.

And Miami News cartoonist Don Wright imagined what the celebration's organizers might do with a captured hippie....

Miami News cartoon by Don Wright.
June 21, 1970.
(Click image to enlarge)

The way we were....Cops try to shut down Miami's first underground newspaper in the Summer of '69

via Coconut Grove Grapevine

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Jerry Powers was ahead of his time.

In the summer of 1969, Miami cops did everything they could to harass Powers, who was the 22-year-old publisher of the Miami Free Press and the Daily Planet, Miami's first underground newspapers - including arresting the paper's teen-age newsboys. Police called the paper's contents, "obscene."

Associated Press,  April 21, 1969.

Powers told the AP, "One morning we may wake up with a 1984 situation here in Florida, where the police can do anything they want."

In August 1969, Powers dared cops to arrest him.

From a 2009 Miami New Times story:

Jerry Powers strolls the sidewalk outside the stately Biltmore Way entrance to Coral Gables City Hall. An impish 23-year-old New Jersey native with a shaggy black mop top and mutton-chop sideburns, he carries a newspaper bundle under his left arm. It is the ninth issue of the Daily Planet and Miami Free Press, a fledgling underground newspaper he founded four months earlier.

Around 10 a.m. August 25, 1969, the muggy air causes his dark polyester slacks to cling to his legs. But the stifling heat does not deter him.

Near the Mediterranean-revival building's front door, Powers hands a newspaper to a heavyset, silver-maned man, who unfolds the tabloid to reveal a front-page spoof of the City of Miami's plans to annex Coconut Grove. Powers gives copies to three other passersby.

He's daring the cops to arrest him.

Inside city hall, Coral Gables City Attorney Charles Spooner addresses a gaggle of reporters crowding his desk. The well-groomed lawyer with a Brylcreem pompadour and a tightly knotted tie says the Daily Planet is obscene and has no place in Dade County. Eight merchants who carry the twice-monthly publication have been threatened with arrest. "Perhaps we are a little bit more backcountry than a big city like San Francisco," he says. "From reading [the Daily Planet], I don't know how it meets the social needs of our community."

Powers presses on as four Gables cops approach. A tall one wearing Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses takes a copy of the Daily Planet, peruses it, and then abruptly grabs Powers's right arm. "You are under arrest for distributing obscene material," he announces while walking Powers to a squad car. The fledgling publisher sits comfortably in the back seat, his right arm hanging out the window. A reporter asks if the arrest was a surprise.

"We sort of expected this to happen because the people in Coral Gables are used to burning books," Powers declares. "The city attorney, by the way, and this is a fact and I have documentation, is on a mailing list [for] sex literature. I think [this is] his motive for causing this arrest."

"Move away," the cop barks. "No one should be talking to this man."

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Miami News, Aug. 26, 1969.

In 1974, the Daily Planet ceased publication.

In 1992, Powers launched Ocean Drive magazine.

The way we were...Miami's Highway Singles Club

Single and lonely in Miami in the 80s?

Well, there was always the "Highway Singles Club." Somehow, this idea never became ... "a thing."

Here's proof that prolonged exposure to the Internet will make you stupid

Wondering what the latest Internet outrage is?

This.

Cops who arrested Dylann Roof treated him to a Burger King http://t.co/Infs86Wk1m pic.twitter.com/pixHMajoXW

— Daily Mail US (@DailyMail) June 23, 2015

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That's right. Hordes of keyboard commandos are outraged that the Shelby police department bought accused mass murderer Dylann Roof a hamburger after his arrest.

The Internet masses have taken a single line from a newspaper story about Roof's arrest and blown it all out of proportion.

In Shelby, the FBI handled Roof’s initial questioning, Ledford said. Shelby police’s lone conversation with the mass-murder suspect was about food. Earlier in the day, Roof had bought water and chips at a south Charlotte gas station. Now he was hungry. Police bought him food from a nearby Burger King, Ledford said.

“He was very quiet, very calm. He didn’t talk,” Ledford said. “He sat down here very quietly. He was not problematic.”

"Police treat Dylann Roof to Burger King while unarmed Black suspects continue to die," someone tweeted.

Another tweet: "Arresting Officers Bought #DylannRoof Burger King. Think about this the next time an unarmed brother dies in custody."

Another tweeter called the act of buying Roof a hamburger, "white privilege."

And on this story on New York Magazine's website, someone commented: "This is disgusting. It's not the fact that he was fed, it's what they gave him. Burger King is a treat! Someone who just murdered nine people does not deserve a treat. Give him a slice of bread and a piece of bologna."

Thanks to the Internet, we are all experts. And all stupid.

But had any of those commenters done a little research, they might have discovered that buying some fast food for those arrested for even the most heinous of crimes is not unusual.

RECIPE FOR A CONFESSION: TWO ALL-BEEF PATTIES . . .

Miami Herald
March 24, 1996
MANNY GARCIA, Herald Staff Writer
Edition: FINAL
Section: FRONT
Page: 1A

First came the lie detector test. Now comes the "Truth Whopper."

In Dade County, more and more detectives are learning that fast food helps them solve robberies, burglaries, even murders.

"The quickest way to a confession is through a man's stomach," said Kent Hart, a Hialeah homicide detective.

Nauseated by the prospect of jailhouse cuisine, defendants are trading confessions for one last Big Mac, chicken sandwich, pizza or Whopper -- which detectives countywide swear is the meal that reels in the most confessions.

"We should open an account at Burger King," Hart said. "Every time we walk in, they ask, 'Are you taking confessions tonight?' "

The public saw the payoff of feeding a suspect during the Jimmy Ryce investigation. Metro-Dade cops made sure that Juan Carlos Chavez regularly ate during more than 50 hours of questioning before he allegedly confessed to the killing.

"If I ate, he ate," said Pat Diaz, the lead investigator in the Ryce case.

"The name of the game now is feed them and schmooze them," said David Waksman, a Dade prosecutor and former Bronx beat cop. "If you keep a guy in custody and he is hungry and you don't feed him, you have deprived him of his rights, and that is illegal."

Police, at the request of prosecutors, routinely write down everything they feed defendants. Sometimes they corroborate it with a photograph.

After Charles Pitts asked robbery detectives for a Wendy's double cheeseburger, they snapped a Polaroid.

The Chavez and Pitts cases are but one example. Court records and police files show heaps of fast-food-induced confessions. "Our trade secret," Metro robbery detective Steve Brajdic said.

Among those who have succumbed to the hamburger: Gerardo Plaza.

"Buy me a Whopper," Hialeah police said he told them after his arrest in February 1995.

Detectives Hart and Bassam Fadel bought him a Whopper combo meal, which includes fries and a Coke. Between bites, Plaza allegedly confessed to a liquor store robbery and murder.

"Well, you got your Whopper's worth," Plaza reportedly said, purposely omitting the ending of the story, so he could add, "I'm really hungry. Buy me a cheese steak."

So take a chill pill, Internet...and then go back to watching your cat videos.

The South Beach photographs of Andy Sweet

Miami Beach resident proudly shows off her velour 
suit in Lummus Park. (Andy Sweet)
(Click here to enlarge)

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, photographer Andy Sweet roamed a the streets of a very different South Beach.

Long before the supermodels and movie crews showed up, Sweet shadowed So Be's elderly residents, photographing them as they went about their daily activities.

Then, in 1982, just as Sweet was beginning to make a name for himself, he was murdered in his apartment at 215 30th St. on Miami Beach.

From the Washington Post:

Throughout the 1970s, a young photographer named Andy Sweet documented the personalities of Miami in vivid color. In 1977, Sweet returned to the area after completing his studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder and set out to document South Beach’s vivid old-world culture. His subjects–predominantly the quirky, stylish, eclectic elderly residents, many of them Jewish–either grew up in the Miami area or were the snow birds who flocked there and found a nest for life.

Sweet died in 1982 at the age of just 29, but his vivid archive continues to epitomize South Beach (SOBE) culture and aesthetics. The Andy Sweet Photo Legacy was established in his memory and continues to display his work with hopes of publish a book of Sweet’s work in the future.

A well-dressed man crosses a deserted Ocean Drive. In the 
background, Andy’s well-used old car. (Andy Sweet)
(Click here to enlarge)

A big grin from a nautical character in the 
park. (Andy Sweet)
(Click here to enlarge)

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Miami Herald, Dec. 5, 1982: Andy Sweet | A portrait

Washington Post: Vivid 1970s Miami Beach culture: All quirk, no vice

Andy Sweet: The Miami Beach pictures

Facebook: Andy Sweet Photo Legacy

The way we were....Miami Beach cops take down cocaine lab in the Summer of '85

June 19, 1985: Thirty years ago this week, Miami Beach cops evacuated about 1,000 residents from nine apartment buildings after a cocaine lab filled with volatile chemicals was discovered in a penthouse apartment at 6855 Abbott Ave.

The cops moved the chemicals to a nearby beach and blew them up.