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SATURDAY DECEMBER 5 | SUNDAY DECEMBER 6 2015
Glenview | Northbrook
SUNDAY BREAKFAST ILLUSTRATION BY BARRY BLITT
The quest to save dogs from abuse and how the courts can play a role. P30
SPORTS
Emmett Clifford and his Loyola Academy teammates win state title in a runaway fashion. P23
SOCIAL SCENE
OLPH kicked off the annual Holly Fair with a Ladies Night Out. P14 FOLLOW US:
NO. 59 | A JWC MEDIA PUBLICATION BY CHRIS RITCHIE
NEWS
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D-28 Official Pushes For Full Day Kindergarten BY STEVE SADIN DAILYNORTHSHORE.COM
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ORTHBROOK — Fullday kindergarten got a strong endorsement from Northbrook School District 28 Superintendent Larry Hewitt and now he is developing different ways to pay for it. Hewitt outlined his reasoning to the District 28 School Board during a regularly scheduled meeting Nov. 24 in the Northbrook Junior High Library, promising to present a variety of financial plans to the board at its Dec. 15 meeting. Some fiscal possibilities will include tuition to help fund the program and some will be free as outlined in earlier discussions. Hewitt said the board will vote on whether to implement full-day kindergarten no sooner than its Jan. 26 meeting. Before Hewitt made his presentation part way through the meeting, Northbrook resident Continued on PG 13
A REBEL WITH A CAUSE It’s hard to believe Evanston-born John Cusack hits the big 5-0 in 2016. But for an actor whose life and career have never taken the traditional route, there’s plenty more to come.
utspoken and unorthodox, as a man and an actor, John Cusack forges his own path. That shouldn’t be taken as some kind of pretentious stallsetting. No, Cusack is the real deal: an artist and an activist, unafraid to stand up to absurdity, miscarriages of justice, and issues some people would just rather not think about. The stylish 49-year-old, Evanston born-and-bred star, whose career criss-crosses the Hollywood spectrum from oddball (Being John Malkovich) to action blockbuster (Con Air) and everything in between, has publicly decried the NSA’s global surveillance program, stood up against the US’ involvement in the Iraq conflict, taken President Obama to task over military and national security measures (he even called Obama “worse than Bush”) and now, with the help of edgy filmmaker Spike Lee, is targeting gun violence. It’s a topic rarely out of the global news—witness the recent spate of police shootings of unarmed black citizens in the US, for example—and in Lee’s latest, Chi-Raq, gun violence and urban warfare on the streets of Chicago take centre stage. Cusack, no stranger to controversy, now finds himself fending it off. “Some local politicians have been trying to manufacture controversy about the film without
having seen it or without knowing what the story is really about,” he observes with a frown. “I think people should wait and watch it and then they will see what the film is trying to say. I love my city of Chicago—all of Chicago. I would never do anything to hurt it. I’m very proud to be in this film.” Indeed the movie, co-starring Samuel L. Jackson, Jeremy Piven, and Jennifer Hudson, has been criticized by several prominent Chicago figures: positioning the city as a “war zone” has been a step too far for some. Yet for Cusack, the positives are obvious. “Spike called me and said ‘this is an important film and it will help save lives.’ I believe that. This is a courageous film of conscience that will help promote a more peaceful America.” Hollywood must take some of the credit for glorifying gun violence, and it’s a valid argument to point a finger at Cusack, for he, too, has done his fair share of lethal gunplay (Grosse Point Blank, Con Air, etc.) on the big screen. But for him and cowriter-director Lee, it’s valid social commentary. Indeed, the term ‘Chiraq’ has become modern parlance for some in Chicago, and Lee himself, at a recent rally in the city, made his position clear: “This is real life and death and that’s the way we’re going to approach this.” Continued on PG 12
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