The policeman was struck by a rock during a rally the year before, and the rock thrower, Robert Thaxton, is serving a seven-year prison sentence for the crime. Children play on a nearby swing set. The meal has arrived in a bicycle cart and consists of organic baked fruit with oatmeal, homegrown tomato salad, and herbal tea. It comes courtesy of volunteers who use surplus food to feed their community's hungry every afternoon at four. For every ten pairs of eyes there is a video camera, or so it seems.
Photographers snap pictures.
Microphones sprout high above the crowd. Videographers record each other recording protesters, the media, and curious onlookers clustered around an anarchist shouting through a megaphone. Eugene anarchists have become a spectacle. Featured in national media stories, showcased regularly on the local news, hassled increasingly by police, the movement has become part of the fabric of life in Eugene. But who these anarchists are and what they mean to accomplish is a sketchy subject.