A patrol is commonly a group of personnel, such as police officers or soldiers, that are assigned to monitor a specific geographic area.

UN Peacekeepers in Eritrea.

A patrol performed by United States Secret Service officers.

Military[link]

In military tactics, a patrol is a small tactical unit sent out from a larger unit by land, sea or air for the purpose of combat, reconnaissance, or a combination of both. The basic task of a patrol is to follow a known route at regular intervals looking out for anything out of the ordinary — which if found will be reported or dealt with as appropriate. Patrol can refer to reconnaissance patrols, which sent to investigate some feature of interest, or to fighting patrols (US combat patrol), sent to find and engage the enemy. A patrol can also mean a small cavalry or armoured unit, subordinate to a troop or platoon. A patrol usually comprises a section or squad of mounted troopers, or two AFVs (often tanks).

Law enforcement[link]

US Border Patrol Agent monitoring US-Canada border in Montana

In non-military law enforcement, patrol officers are uniformed police officers assigned to monitor specified geographic areas — that is, to move through their areas at regular intervals looking out for any signs of problems of any kind. They are the officers most commonly encountered by the public, as their duties include responding to calls for service, making arrests, resolving disputes, taking crime reports, and conducting traffic enforcement, and other crime prevention measures. A patrol officer is often the first to arrive on the scene of any incident; what such an officer does or fails to do at the scene can greatly influence the outcome of any subsequent investigation. The patrol officer, as the person who is in the field daily, is often closest to potential crime and may have developed contacts who can provide information.

The Philadelphia Foot Patrol Experiment, a randomized control trial conducted by Temple University, has shown that foot patrols reduce crime^[1]. With the resources to patrol 60 locations, researchers identified the highest violent crime corners in the city, using data from 2006 to 2008. Police commanders designed 120 foot patrol areas around these corners, and stratified randomization was used to assign pairs of foot patrols with similar crime rates as either a comparison or a target area. Officers generally patrolled in pairs with two pairs assigned to each foot patrol. After three months, relative to the comparison areas, violent crime decreased 23%.

Official records of police activities during the intervention period reveal the following in the target areas: Drug‐related incident detections increased 15% Pedestrian stops increased 64% Vehicle stops increased 7% Arrests increased 13%

An emerging trend within patrol is the supplement^{[clarification needed]} of basic police patrol with that of private security agencies. The privatization of police is explored in James Pastor's book The Privatization of Police in America: An Analysis and Case Study.^[2]

Etymology[link]

From French patrouiller from Old French patouiller (“‘to paddle, paw about, patrol’”) from patte (“‘a paw’”)^{[citation needed]}

Non-law enforcement patrols[link]

Schools[link]

Some elementary schools use the term patrol to refer to students who are selected to monitor safety in the classroom or to those students who assist crossing guards with safety of children crossing busy streets. Another common term for this use of patrol is hall monitor.

Scouting[link]

In Scouting, a patrol is six to eight youth under the leadership of one Patrol leader and an Assistant Patrol Leader. This is the basic unit of a Scout troop. The Patrol method is an essential characteristic of Scouting by which it differs from all other organizations, using the natural dynamics of the gang for an educational purpose.^{[citation needed]}

References[link]

Look up patrol in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Patrol

Jeff Bridges
Bridges at the Berlin Film Festival in 2011
Born	Jeffrey Leon Bridges (1949-12-04) December 4, 1949 (age 62) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, singer, producer, composer
Years active	1950–present
Spouse	Susan Geston (m. 1977) «start: (1977)»"Marriage: Susan Geston to Jeff Bridges" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Jeff_Bridges)

Jeffrey Leon Bridges (born December 4, 1949) is an American actor, musician, producer, photographer, cartoonist, storyteller, and occasional vintner. He comes from a well-known acting family and began his first televised acting in 1958 as child with his father, Lloyd Bridges, and brother Beau on television's Sea Hunt. Some of his best-known major motion films include: Tron (and its sequel) , Fearless, Iron Man, Contender, TheThe Contender, Starman, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Jagged Edge, Against All Odds, Fisher King, TheThe Fisher King, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, Seabiscuit, and The Big Lebowski. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Otis "Bad" Blake in the 2009 film Crazy Heart and earned his sixth Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of Rooster Cogburn in 2010's True Grit.

Early life[link]

Jeffrey Leon Bridges was born in Los Angeles, California on December 4, 1949. He is son of showbiz parents, actor Lloyd Bridges.^[1][2] and actress and writer Dorothy Bridges (née Simpson). His older brother, Beau Bridges, is also an actor. He has a younger sister, Lucinda, and had another brother, Garrett, who died of sudden infant death syndrome in 1948. Growing up, Bridges shared a close relationship with his brother Beau, who acted as a surrogate father when their father was working.^[3] Bridges and his siblings were raised in the Holmby Hills section of Los Angeles.^[4] He graduated from University High School (Los Angeles, California) in 1967. At age fourteen, Jeff toured with his father in a stage production of Anniversary Waltz.

After graduating from high school, Bridges journeyed to New York City where he studied acting at the Herbert Berghof Studio. Also, after turning 18, Bridges joined the United States Coast Guard Reserve, where he served for eight years.^[5]

Career[link]

Film[link]

Bridges in 2002

Bridges made his first screen appearance at the age of four months in The Company She Keeps in 1950. In his youth, Bridges and brother Beau made occasional appearances on their father's show Sea Hunt (1958–1961) and the CBS anthology series, The Lloyd Bridges Show (1962–1963). His first major role came in the 1971 film The Last Picture Show, for which he garnered a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.^[6] He co-starred in the 1972 critically acclaimed neo-noir boxing film Fat City, directed by legendary director, John Huston. He was nominated again for Best Supporting Actor for his performance opposite Clint Eastwood in the 1974 film Thunderbolt and Lightfoot.^[6] In 1976, he starred as the protagonist Jack Prescott in the first remake of King Kong, opposite Jessica Lange. This film was a commercial success, earning $90 million worldwide, more than triple its $23 million budget, and also winning an Academy Award for special effects.

One of his better known roles was in the 1982 science fiction cult classic Tron, in which he played Kevin Flynn, a video game programmer (a role he reprised in late 2010 with the sequel Tron: Legacy). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1984, for playing the alien in Starman.^[6] He was also acclaimed for his roles in the thriller Against All Odds (1984) and the crime drama Jagged Edge (1985). His role in Fearless (1993) is recognized by some critics to be one of his best performances.^[7] One critic dubbed it a masterpiece;^[8] Pauline Kael wrote that he "may be the most natural and least self-conscious screen actor that has ever lived".^[9] In 1998, he starred as what is arguably his most famous role, "The Dude", in the Coen Brothers' cult-classic film The Big Lebowski.^[6] He has said that he relates to "The Dude" more than any of his other roles.^{[citation needed]}

In 2000, he received his fourth Academy Award nomination, for his role in The Contender.^[6] He also starred in the 2005 Terry Gilliam film Tideland, his second with the director (the first being 1991's The Fisher King). He shaved his trademark^{[citation needed]} mane of hair to play the role of Obadiah Stane in the 2008 Marvel comic book adaptation Iron Man.^[10] In July 2008, at the San Diego Comic-Con International, he appeared in a teaser for Tron: Legacy, shot as concept footage for director Joseph Kosinski; this developed into a full 3D feature release in 2010.

Bridges is one of the youngest actors ever to be nominated for an Academy Award (1972, age 22, Best Supporting Actor, The Last Picture Show), and one of the oldest ever to win (2010, age 60, Best Actor, Crazy Heart).^[11][12] Crazy Heart also won him the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama, and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role.

Bridges at the premiere of The Men Who Stare at Goats, during the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival.

Bridges received his sixth Academy Award nomination for his role in True Grit, a collaboration with the Coen brothers in which he starred alongside Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper, and Hailee Steinfeld. Both the film, and Bridges' performance as Rooster Cogburn, were critically praised. Bridges lost to Colin Firth, whom he had beaten for the Oscar in the same category the previous year.

Music[link]

Referring to his career as an actor and his passion for music, Bridges says, "I dug what an actor did, but it took me a while to feel it, to truly appreciate the craft and the preparation. Plus, I was still playing music a lot, and I guess I had a hard time choosing: was I an actor or a musician, or could I be both?"^[13]

Bridges studied piano at a young age strongly encouraged by his mother.^[14] He released his debut album Be Here Soon on January 1, 2000. In 2005, Bridges, known as "The Dude" in the film Big Lebowski, showed up at a Lebowski Fest in Los Angeles singing and playing acoustic guitar of the film's theme song written by Bob Dylan, "Man in Me".

On January 15, 2010, Bridges performed the song "I Don't Know" from Crazy Heart on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. In the film The Contender, in which he co-starred, Bridges recorded a version of Johnny Cash's standard "Ring of Fire" with Kim Carnes that played over the pivotal opening credits. In February 2010, he was among the nearly 80 musicians to sing on the charity-single remake of We Are the World.^[15] On October 24, 2010, Bridges appeared at Neil Young's annual Bridge School Benefit concert and played a set with Neko Case.

On April 19, 2011, Country Music Television announced that Bridges had signed a recording contract with Blue Note Records/EMI Music Group. He worked with producer T-Bone Burnett and released his second album, Jeff Bridges, on August 16, 2011.^[16] On November 5, 2011, Bridges played Austin City Limits in support of this album.^[17]

Bridges plays guitars such as: Gretsch Chet Atkins Country Gentlemen Model G6122-1959.^[14]

Testimonials[link]

"He set up a little recording studio in his trailer and we would go in and work on songs together, singing harmonies all the time." Karen Allen, when filming Starman in 1984.

"Jeff was a lot of fun to have around. He's a fabulous musician so he always had a guitar with him on set." Glenn Close, in reference to filming the 1985 movie, Jagged Edge.^[18]

Other work as[link]

Photographer[link]

Jeff Bridges has been an amateur photographer since high school, and began taking photographs on film sets during Starman, at the suggestion of co-star Karen Allen.^[19] Since 1980, he began photographing on and off set shot with his favorite camera, a Widelux F8. He published many of these photographs online and published a book in 2003 entitled, Pictures: Photographs by Jeff Bridges.^{[20][21][22][23]}

Cartoonist[link]

Bridges is a cartoonist. Some of his "doodles" have appeared in films including K-PAX and The Door in the Floor.^{[citation needed]}

Narrator[link]

Bridges narrated the documentary Lost in La Mancha (2002), about the "unmaking" of a Terry Gilliam retelling of Don Quixote, tentatively titled The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, which would have starred Johnny Depp as Sancho Panza and Jean Rochefort as the quixotic hero. Bridges had previously appeared in Gilliam's "The Fisher King." Bridges also narrated the documentaries Lewis & Clark: Great Journey West (2002, IMAX), Raising the Mammoth (2000, TV), and The Heroes of Rock and Roll (1979, TV). He also voiced the character Big Z in the animated picture Surf's Up.

Bridges at the 2010 Independent Spirit Awards.

Bridges has performed TV commercial voice-over work as well, including Hyundai's 2007 "Think About It" advertisement campaign^[24] as well as the Duracell advertisements in the "Trusted Everywhere" campaign.^[25]

On December 18, 2010, Bridges hosted NBC's Saturday Night Live; he had hosted the show before in 1983 with his brother, Beau. With the December 18, 2010 episode, Bridges beat Sigourney Weaver's record for longest gap between hosting appearances on SNL (Weaver had a 24-year gap between her first time hosting in 1986 and her second time hosting in 2010, while Bridges had a 27-year gap between his first appearance in 1983 and his most recent one, also in 2010).

Personal life[link]

Bridges married Susan Geston in 1977.^[26] They met on the film shoot of Rancho Deluxe, which was filmed on a ranch where Geston was working as a maid.^[6][27] They have three daughters: Isabelle Annie (born August 6, 1981), Jessica Lily "Jessie" (born June 14, 1983), and Hayley Roselouise (born October 17, 1985). He became a grandfather on March 31, 2011, when Isabelle gave birth to a daughter, Grace. Jeff once stated, "I had a great '70s. Today, being a parent with three daughters, I look back on it thinking, Oh, man, the things I did!" ^[28]

Bridges has studied Buddhism. He meditates for half an hour before beginning work on a film set.^[29]

He currently lives in Montecito, California.

Humanitarian efforts[link]

In 1984, Bridges and other entertainment industry leaders founded the End Hunger Network aimed at encouraging, stimulating and supporting action to end childhood hunger. He supports President Obama's initiative to End Childhood Hunger by 2015. He has teamed up with the Zen Peacemakers who operate a non-traditional soup kitchen that builds a cross-class community and provides food and wellness offerings with dignity.^[30] In November 2010, Bridges became spokesman for the No Kid Hungry Campaign of the organization Share our Strength. Its goal is to present and undertake a state-by-state strategy to end childhood hunger in the United States by 2015.^[31]

Filmography and television programs[link]

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

Singles[link]

Music videos[link]

See also[link]

• List of oldest and youngest Academy Award winners and nominees

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jeff Bridges

• Jeff Bridges at the Internet Movie Database
• Jeff Bridges at AllRovi
• Official website
• Jeff Bridges at Emmys.com

Ryan Reynolds
Reynolds at the 82nd Academy Awards in 2010
Born	Ryan Rodney Reynolds (1976-10-23) October 23, 1976 (age 35) Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1990–present
Spouse	Scarlett Johansson (2008–2011)

Ryan Rodney Reynolds (born October 23, 1976)^[1] is a Canadian film and television actor. Reynolds is known for playing the role of Michael Bergen on ABC's sitcom Two Guys and a Girl (1998–2001), Wade Wilson / Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and Hal Jordan / Green Lantern in Green Lantern. He has also appeared in films such as National Lampoon's Van Wilder, Just Friends, Definitely, Maybe, The Proposal, The Change-Up, and Safe House.

Early life[link]

Reynolds was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. His father, Jim, is a food wholesaler, and his mother, Tammy, is a retail salesperson.^[1] He is of Irish ancestry and was raised as a Roman Catholic.^[2][3] The youngest of four brothers,^[4] he graduated from Kitsilano Secondary School in Vancouver in 1994. He later attended Kwantlen Polytechnic University, also in Vancouver, until dropping out.^[5]

Career[link]

Reynolds at the X-Men Origins: Wolverine premiere in Tempe, Arizona (2009)

Reynolds' career began in 1990 when he starred as "Billy" in the Canadian-produced teen soap Hillside, distributed in the United States by Nickelodeon as Fifteen. As an adult, Reynolds starred in the National Lampoon movie Van Wilder and the American television series Two Guys, A Girl and a Pizza Place, playing medical student Michael "Berg" Bergen. In 1993-94 he had a recurring role in The Odyssey as Macro. He also cameoed in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle as a nurse, appeared in The In-Laws with Michael Douglas and Albert Brooks, as well as the Canadian production Foolproof.

In 2005 he played a waiter named Monty in Waiting..., and as music executive Chris Brander in the romantic comedy Just Friends alongside Amy Smart and Anna Faris. Reynolds played the protagonist in the 2008 film Definitely, Maybe. He has also appeared in the second season finale of the television series Scrubs. In 2007, Reynolds guest-starred as Brendan's friend Hams in the episode "Douchebag in the City" of the TBS sitcom My Boys. In 2009, he portrayed Andrew Paxton, starring opposite Sandra Bullock, in The Proposal, and Mike Connell in Adventureland.

Although he has performed primarily in comedies, Reynolds underwent intense physical training to play an action role as the character of Hannibal King in the 2004 film Blade: Trinity. Reynolds played George Lutz in the 2005 remake of the 1979 horror film The Amityville Horror. He played an FBI agent alongside Ray Liotta in the 2006 crime action film Smokin' Aces.

Reynolds in September 2010

In a March 2005 interview, Reynolds spoke of his interest and involvement in a possible film adaptation of Deadpool with screenwriter David S. Goyer,^[6] as well as the possibility of playing the incarnation of The Flash known as Wally West in an adaption of the popular DC Comics character in the upcoming movie project. Reynolds portrayed Deadpool in the X-Men spinoff X-Men Origins: Wolverine and was announced to portray him again in a spin-off, Deadpool which is due out in 2013.^[7] It was later confirmed that the Deadpool film will be a reboot, ignoring the events that took place in X-Men Origins and establishing a new backstory for the character.^[8]

He also starred in the Spanish thriller Buried, which screened at the Sundance film festival.^[9]

Reynolds portrayed superhero Hal Jordan/Green Lantern in Warner Bros.' film Green Lantern, released June 17, 2011 in 3D; this made him one of the few actors to headline in movies based on both Marvel and DC characters.^[10]

Reynolds is scheduled to portray Nick Walker in the Universal Pictures film adaptation of the Dark Horse Comics R.I.P.D. (Rest in Peace Department), which has a planned release in 2013.^[11]

Personal life[link]

Relationships[link]

In 2002, Reynolds began dating Canadian singer Alanis Morissette. The two announced their engagement in June 2004.^[12] In February 2007, representatives for Morissette and Reynolds announced they had mutually decided to end their engagement.^[13] Morissette said her album Flavors of Entanglement was created out of her grief after the breakup.^[14]

Soon after the end of his relationship with Morissette in 2007, Reynolds began dating actress Scarlett Johansson.^[15] The couple announced their engagement in May 2008^[16] and they married on September 27, 2008 in a quiet ceremony near Tofino, British Columbia.^[17] On December 14, 2010, Reynolds and Johansson announced that they had separated.^[18] Reynolds filed for divorce in Los Angeles on December 23, 2010; Johansson filed her response simultaneously.^[19] The divorce was finalized on July 1, 2011.^[20]

In October 2011, it was reported that Reynolds had begun dating Green Lantern co-star Blake Lively.^[21]

In the media[link]

In October 2008 Reynolds wrote for The Huffington Post regarding his plan to run the New York City Marathon for his father, who suffers from Parkinson's disease.^[22]

Reynolds appeared in People's Sexiest Man Alive lists in 2008^[23] and 2009,^[24] and was awarded the top honor in 2010.^[25] In April 2011, he was ranked #15 on People's Most Beautiful 2011 list.^[26]

On February 12, 2012, Reynolds appeared on the BBC's Top Gear as the Star In a Reasonably-Priced Car. He posted a time of 1.43:7.

Filmography[link]

Awards and honors[link]