Generation June

RIO DE JANEIRO -- The journalists wait in a sidewalk restaurant, cinching tight the straps on combat helmets, screwing in filters to Israeli-made gas masks. Waiters in white jackets and black ties refill glasses and take orders, business as usual. They move easily over the cobblestones, not looking twice when a customer at one of the outdoor tables straps on body armor. A soap opera plays on a television inside the place. A block away is the famous Cinel�ndia, the square where Rio de Janeiro has protested for generations. A group of masked Black Bloc anarchists have gathered there, a few dozen for now. Down the alley, a group of policeman order McDonald's ice cream to go. Their bodies heavy with the menacing accoutrement of war, they delicately eat their tiny desserts.