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Thousands of hip-hop music fans converging here for Lollapalooza this weekend have been awaiting the delayed release of “Donda,” Chicago hip-hop icon Kanye West’s new album dedicated to his mother, the late Chicago State University professor, Donda West.

Disappointed fans burned up social media after West’s 10th studio album failed to materialize as promised in tandem with his sold-out July 22 listening session at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

But at least one fan post that day did not cover the impromptu event or whopping 42,000 fans who bought tickets with two days notice, nor did it critique the highly anticipated album with guest appearances featuring Jay-Z, etc., the $40 hot dogs or the aftermath.

The post by CSU Professor of Educational Policy Studies Garrard McClendon featured a simple photo of him and West, and the words: “Honored to spend time with the Kanye West team, assisting in his philanthropic efforts over the last few weeks to discuss his mother’s educational philosophy + legacy. He is a true follower of the soul’s code. God 1st.”

I called to rib him. “You hanging out with Kanye these days?” McClendon laughed.

Turns out he is, but not in the way I thought. McClendon, author of the 2019 “Donda’s Rules: The Scholarly Works of Dr. Donda West – Mother of Kanye West,” had gotten a call out of the blue earlier this month from Kanye’s people.

“It’s kind of an out-of-body experience when Kanye West’s team calls you and says, ‘Can you get on a plane and come to California? Kanye wants to see you,'” he said. “Of course I said, ‘Yes.'”

West flew McClendon, 55, who has taught at CSU for 11 years, to San Francisco, where West had rented out an entire Silicon Valley resort while working on the reveal of his album, a tribute to his mom, who died in 2007 at age 58 of complications following plastic surgery.

West wanted McClendon’s help with a philanthropic endeavor he’s putting together to honor her.

Provided

All that McClendon can share for now is that a curriculum based on Donda West’s work is being developed for educational purposes, spearheaded by her music and fashion icon son.

“I spent five days out there with him. It was beautiful. It was my privilege to be there. His brilliance, I got to see it. My role was just to be a conduit, a provider of any information he needs on his mother’s work in his effort now to honor her,” he said.

“He is a multifaceted creative, to be sure. But what I saw was a sensitive side that, of course, is piqued by his interest now in honoring his mom.”

West’s mother was a noted scholar who taught at CSU for 31 years — 24 as chair of its Department of English, Communications, Media and Theater.

A Fulbright Scholar and recipient of many awards, she’d helped establish CSU’s Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing. After retiring in 2004, she’d moved to California to help with her son’s career.

” I met her twice, and we had discussions about her scholarly works.At one point, I’d said to her, ‘You know, Donda, your scholarly works should be published. Everyone knows Kanye, and many know you have a Ph.D. But no one’s really familiar with your scholarly works, which are phenomenal. Someone should publish them,'” McClendon said.

“She looked me right in the eye and said, ‘Why don’t you publish them?’ That took me totally by surprise, and I laughed it off, never thinking about it again for many years.”

Years after her death, those words haunted him. McClendon became a man on a mission.

In 2011, when he shared the request of the late professor with Che “Rhymefest” Smith, a longtime friend of Kanye’s, Smith urged him to fulfill her wishes and connected him with the rapper.

In 2013, McClendon enlisted the students in his Philosophy of Education classes to help him mine various archives for Donda West’s full body of work. The book was birthed in fall 2019.

” The students did a wonderful job helping me find all of this archival material. We’re talking her scholarly works, her dissertation, her master’s thesis. We found personal notes of hers, poems of hers, hundreds of hours of her audio speeches. So in those six years, we’re compiling, we’re editing, and having conference calls with Kanye,” McClendon recounted.

“This is how her story gets told. Kanye, who stayed in contact through the publishing, LOVES the book. Oh my God, he loves the book. It was a business relationship at first, then it became more of an acquaintanceship, then friendship.”

Donda West, whose 2007 book, “Raising Kanye – Life Lessons From The Mother of A Hip-Hop Superstar,” (Gallery Books, 2007, $16.95), left little question about where Kanye gets his unbridled confidence, was CEO of West Brands, the parent company of his businesses.

The closeness of the single, divorced mother and her son was always evident, as in his tribute “Hey Mama” track on his second studio album, 2005’s “Late Registration.” The Chicago native has included references to his beloved mother on just about every album, and not only is this new album named for her, but so is his design company.

Tell us more about the upcoming curriculum project, I pushed McClendon. No dice.

“Until that becomes full blown, we probably won’t make any comment on that. But I can tell you the book has 70 rules — Donda West’s 70 rules on writing and thinking,” he said.

“Donda West believed children learn by doing, that you can’t tell a child what to learn — they have to do it. She would always say, ‘I didn’t teach Kanye how to rap or how to produce music. What I gave him was the freedom and the tools to do so.’

“See, when you learn all about Donda West — a freedom fighter, a poet, a scholar, a civil rights activist and just an outstanding professor — then you know the outcome in her son, Kanye Omari West, was inevitable.”

Paras Griffin/Getty Images

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Deputy U.S. marshals and Orland Park cops on Wednesday arrested a 50-year-old businessman who failed to report to federal prison for parole violations in a $10 million fraud case.

Lee Anglin was taken into custody at a sports and dining club on 143rd Street in Orland Park after the Orland Park Police Department got a tip he was there.

A man who said he runs the club’s daily operations told the Sun-Times that Anglin’s wife, Jenni, is the president of the facility, called the Riviera Country Club.

Lee Anglin was paroled in 2018 after serving about 12 years in prison for a $10 million real-estate scam.

Anglin violated his parole when he failed to tell his parole agent about business ventures he and his wife were involved with in Utah. He also failed to tell the court he was getting paid for providing legal advice to inmates. He was supposed to report to prison June 29 for a six-month sentence.

Court records involving his parole violation didn’t mention his involvement in the Orland Park facility, which opened in June after closing under previous ownership during the coronavirus pandemic.

Earlier this week, a man who identified himself as Fletcher Handford said he runs the daily operations of the facility and told the Sun-Times that Lee Anglin wasn’t involved in the business, but that Anglin’s wife was president of the venture. “I deal directly with Jenni,” Handford said.

A Facebook post in May, signed by “Lee & Jenni,” said they planned to invest “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in the complex and that “husband and wife are deeply involved in every decision.” Jenni Anglin lives in Utah and Anglin was living in Chicago while on parole, according to court records.

In a statement, the Orland Park Police Department said the village is “reviewing all potential code, business and/or liquor license violations” for the facility.

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Bears nose tackle Eddie Goldman said he had no regrets about opting out of the 2020 season for coronavirus concerns. But, as the next question was being asked at his press conference Wednesday, he interrupted to amend that.

“The only regret that I do have is just the fact that my teammates went to battle without me,” Goldman said. “That’ll be my only regret.”

For the soft-spoken Goldman, the regret that he might have let his teammates down figures to be a motivating factor as he re-starts his promising career at 27. Though defensive end Bilal Nichols played well as Goldman’s primary replacement — with five sacks and seven tackles-for-loss — he wasn’t Eddie Goldman.

Without Goldman to plug up the middle at a Pro Bowl level, the defense dropped from ninth to 15th in the NFL in rushing yards allowed per game and from sixth to ninth in rushing yards per attempt. And opponents often had success running where Goldman usually would be in the way. The Bears allowed 62 rushes of 10 yards or more in 2020 — a huge increase from the 35 rushes of 10 yards or more in 2019.

Goldman said it was a tough decision to opt out, but the experience was tougher than he thought. “It was really challenging,” he said. “When I made the decision, I weighed all my options, just thinking I would be away from the game for a year — and it really took a toll on me. Especially when I watched the season play out and how we made the playoffs. It wasn’t really a fun thing.”

But it was never more miserable than on game days.

“There as a lot of anxiety,” Goldman said. “You couldn’t really enjoy it, because I was so much in it. I lived and died with every play, so it was tough. Just being away from it kind of killed me.”

Goldman acknowledged he was concerned about the reaction from teammates who might have felt he let them down. “That was something I was thinking about,” he said. “When I came back, everybody greeted me with love. I feel like everybody’s just happy to be back in the building together.”

Not surprisingly, Goldman’s teammates are thrilled to have him back. Even the mostly stoic Khalil Mack lit up a bit when asked about Goldman’s return.

“Hey man, every time I look at him, I just call his name — Eddie G. He looks and smiles — he doesn’t say much,” Mack said. “It’s a great feeling to have the guy back in the building — just understanding the type of person he is, but the type of player he is as well. I know it’s gonna be a fun one. Any time you’ve got Eddie G, he’s gonna make life easier for you.”

Though Goldman indicated to the Bears that he would return for the 2021 season, he caused some doubt — even for coach Matt Nagy and defensive coordinator Sean Desai — when he sat out offseason practices and the mandatory mini-camp. He said coronavirus protocols and family issues caused him to sit out.

Nagy did not know whether Goldman would play this year until he received a text from vice-president of communications Brandon Faber on Tuesday. Nagy responded with a thumbs up emoji, then double exclamation points. “We like having good players and good people show up and Eddie’s a huge part of this defense. So [Tuesday] was a good day.”

Goldman reported in “great shape” and “did great” on the Bears’ conditioning test. He figures to need more time than most to get back into football mode. But once he does, at 27 he is hopeful to pick up where he left off in 2019, when he was a Pro Bowl alternate.

“It’s definitely doable,” he said. “I feel like I’m gonna do it.”

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Hall of Fame defensive back Charles Woodson played 18 years in the NFL, his last two alongside Khalil Mack on the Raiders. When he talks, Mack listens.

“You don’t get too many years in the NFL, too many chances to win ballgames and too many chances to get to the playoffs and go all the way,” the star outside linebacker said Wednesday, after the Bears kicked off training camp with a light practice. “Charles Woodson told me a long time ago — he was like, ‘You cannot waste time. This [stuff] is very valuable.

“I understand that now, going into Year 8. And [I’ve] only been in the playoffs three times so far — and losing in the first round every one of them. [Stuff] is very valuable. Time is of the essence.”

That’s true for Mack, who knows he needs to be better. And it certainly applies to the Bears’ defense, which was the NFL’s gold standard in 2018 and then slipped, considerably, in each of the past two seasons.

In 2018, the Bears led the NFL with 36 takeaways. The defense helped to mask offensive flaws that would become plainly apparent the next two years when the Bears ranked 22nd and 25th, respectively, in takeaways. Without a short field, the Bears simply couldn’t score.

When the defense stopped sizzling, so did the Bears.

“The thing about a team sport is everybody’s got to carry each other,” Mack said. “It’s about everybody being of one accord and everybody doing what it takes to win ballgames, whether it’s them scoring 17 points or 14 or 12 or us shutting another team out. Whatever it takes to win a ballgame is definitely what we’ve got to step up and be able to do on defense.”

But the defense won’t improve this year unless Mack does. And vice versa.

Mack was the best edge rusher graded by Pro Football Focus last year, but his sack total was once again disappointing. He totaled nine last year and 8 1/2 in 2019. In his four seasons before that, he averaged 14.75 — numbers far more befitting the six-year, $141 million contract the Bears handed him in 2018, the highest-ever for a defender.

The Bears will be quick to say that Mack’s sack numbers were blunted by constant double- and triple-teams, and that every coach in the NFL spends game week ensuring Mack won’t ruin their game plan. Mack won’t get any relief, though, unless his counterpart scares their opponents. Leonard Floyd didn’t in his first two seasons, and Robert Quinn was one of the biggest, most expensive disappointments in the NFL last year.

Sean Desai, the new defensive coordinator, needs to find ways to unlock the pass rush the Bears are paying so handsomely.

“He’s really creative with what we do on defense,” general manger Ryan Pace said.

Head coach Matt Nagy interviewed nine candidates for the coordinator position before hiring Desai, his former safeties coach and first-time play-caller, in January. Nagy heard the candidates suggest ways to free Mack from double-teams, and might borrow a few. He liked Desai’s suggestions, too; expect him to move Mack around the defensive line on obvious pass downs more than the Bears did when Chuck Pagano called plays.

“We’re not going to probably show very much of that [in the preseason],” Nagy said. “But eventually, we will.”

Asked if the Bears’ defensive struggles through the second half of last season were more a result of scheme or players, Mack tossed the question aside like he did Buccaneers tackle Tristan Wirfs on national television last year.

“That sounds like excuses,” he said. “But for me personally, I know I can play better. So ultimately, what I can control is what I can control….. But what you bring to the table, we’ve got to bring it all together and be what we know we can be — and that’s a great defense.”

Mack refused to blame injuries, too, despite spending more time on the Bears’ injury report last year than his previous two seasons. He didn’t miss a game, but he was listed with injuries to his knee, back and ankle. A shoulder injury suffered in Week 13 was the worst of them

“We want to make sure — and [Mack] knows this — that we do everything we can on the prevention side, of the health and their bodies, and Khalil specifically,” Nagy said. “And then making sure we also help him out schematically. He’s going to get double and triple-[teamed]. How do we help alleviate that with him so that when he does get singled, he can have more chances to win?”

If he does, the takeaways will come. That’s precisely what Nagy wants to see from his defense in the next six weeks.

“A ton of them,” Nagy said. “Everywhere you look, I want that ball coming out. I want fumbles, interceptions, tipped passes. I mean like – when they go to bed at night, just think about intercepting the football, you know? Stripping that football, be like, crazy about it. Everywhere you go. We have to get takeaways this year, and I think we got a lot of guys that are ready for it …

“We went through that a few years ago, and you can see what that can do. That can really help out. But we as coaches, we’ve got to talk about it. You can’t just go out and expect it to happen.”

Mack, on the other hand, doesn’t do the talking.

“Get to the damn quarterback,” he said. “That’s what we got paid to do, coming in and affecting the game by getting to the quarterback and creating turnovers and short fields for the offense. Ultimately, that’s the goal.

“Of course, we’re not satisfied with the result last year. So there’s work to be done. Enough talking. I don’t do that. I don’t like to talk about it.”

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Former federal prosecutor Lawrence Oliver was appointed Wednesday to investigate the Cook County state’s attorney’s office and a former employee who allegedly lied on the witness stand during the third trial of Jackie Wilson, who was eventually cleared of murdering two Chicago police officers.

Oliver, who was named special prosecutor by Judge Alfredo Maldonado, will investigate perjury allegations against former Assistant State’s Attorney Nicholas Trutenko and whether other current and former members of State’s Attorney’s Kim Foxx’s office may have tried to cover for him.

Trutenko was fired in October on the same day he admitted, during Wilson’s third trial, that he had an ongoing personal relationship with William Coleman, a jailhouse informant who helped convict Wilson of the 1982 murders of Officers William Fahey and Richard O’Brien at his second trial.

Oliver will have authority to convene a special grand jury to investigate and potentially bring criminal charges against Trutenko, as well as probe the operations of Foxx’s office for evidence of a coverup.

“Whatever investigation happens, happens,” Maldonado said during the brief on-line hearing Wednesday. “Now that this investigation is ongoing, this investigation goes wherever it goes.”

Wilson’s lawyer, Elliott Slosar, seemed satisfied with Oliver being named special prosecutor.

“We are pleased the court has undergone such a thorough search and found a well-qualified special prosecutor,” Slosar said. “We know that what we’ve uncovered is only the tip of the iceberg. We know that the special prosecutor will find out whatever was going on behind the scenes in the state’s attorney’s office.”

In an emailed statement, a Foxx spokesperson said the office would cooperate with the special prosecutor.

“The State’s Attorney is committed to transparency and accountability in this and all matters, and the office will fully cooperate with the review of this case,” the statement said.

Oliver’s appointment marks the second time the state’s attorney’s office has been investigated under Foxx’s leadership. In 2019, special prosecutor Dan Webb was appointed to investigate the office’s decision to drop charges against former “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett who is accused of staging a hate crime near his Streeterville apartment.

Webb did not find evidence to support criminal charges against any prosecutors, including Foxx, though he reported uncovering “substantial abuses of discretion and operational failures.”

Webb’s report remains under seal and has not been made public.

Oliver spent four years as a federal prosecutor before joining Perkins Coie law firm, where he headed up the firm’s white-collar criminal practice. He was appointed as a special prosecutor to investigate alleged beatings by guards at the Cook County Jail in 2003, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Oliver was also appointed to the Board of Trustees at the University of Illinois in the wake of an admissions scandal in 2009, and to former Gov. Pat Quinn’s Reform Commission, which recommended policy changes in state government after the indictment of Quinn’s predecessor, Rod Blagojevich.

Oliver spent 16 years as chief counsel-investigations for Boeing, although it was not clear if he still works for the Chicago-based aircraft manufacturer. He did not immediately respond to a call from the Chicago Sun-Times Wednesday.

Maldonado ordered the special prosecutor investigation in June, after Wilson’s lawyers petitioned the court to investigate Trutenko for perjury and to probe how the state’s attorney’s office handled Wilson’s case.

Trutenko was a prosecutor in Wilson’s second trial. Wilson won a third trial in 2018, after Judge William Hooks ruled Wilson had been tortured into giving a confession by detectives working under of former Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge.

During the third trial, special prosecutors said Coleman could not be found and likely was dead, and therefore, they said, they intended to use Coleman’s testimony from the second trial as evidence against Wilson.

But when Trutenko was called to the stand midway through the last trial, he admitted to a long-running friendship with Coleman and said he had recently communicated with Coleman by email. Trutenko said he had not been asked about his ties to Coleman by the special prosecutor, a claim the special prosecutors said was false.

Wilson walked free when all charges against him were dropped shortly after Trutenko’s revelation. Wilson’s brother, Andrew Wilson, who was twice convicted of gunning down the two officers, died in prison in 2007.

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A man was fatally shot Tuesday in South Chicago.

Allard Warren, 32, was in the 8400 block of South Escabana Avenue about 4:05 p.m. when someone opened fire, striking him in the chest, Chicago police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office said.

He was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, police said.

An autopsy released Wednesday found he died of multiple gunshot wounds and ruled his death a homicide, the medical examiner’s office said.

No arrests have been reported. Area Two detectives are investigating.

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GREEN BAY, Wis. — Aaron Rodgers has returned from a tumultuous offseason of uncertainty eager to get the Green Bay Packers to the Super Bowl after falling a step short the last two years.

Nobody’s making any promises regarding the 37-year-old quarterback’s future beyond 2021.

The reigning MVP participated in the Packers’ first training-camp workout Wednesday, Then he made it clear in a news conference that some of the issues that caused him to skip the team’s organized team activities and mandatory minicamp remain unresolved.

Does he expect to be back with the Packers next season?

“I really don’t know,” Rodgers said. “I think I’m just going to focus on this year. There’s a lot of moving pieces besides myself, expiring contracts from a number of guys, so there’s going to be a lot of tough decisions at the end of the year. I’m just going to enjoy this year and then revisit that conversation at the end of the season.”

Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst offered a similar response. Both the quarterback and the general manager described their relationship as “professional.”

“Right now, we’re just really focused on 2021,” Gutekunst told reporters. “It’s kind of a year-to-year business, as you guys know.”

Asked about the issues that led to his frustration, Rodgers gave a reply that lasted nearly six minutes.

The three-time MVP wanted to have a voice in the decision-making process and believed the organization didn’t treat departing high-character veterans with enough respect — mentioning more than a dozen former Packers, including Charles Woodson, Jordy Nelson and Julius Peppers.

He also hoped the Packers would commit to him beyond this season and asked to help recruit free agents. Rodgers indicated he didn’t get the answer he wanted and that the organization instead offered him more money.

“I felt like if you can’t commit to me past 2021 and I’m not part of your recruiting process in free agency, if I’m not a part of the future, then instead of letting me be a lame-duck quarterback, if you want to make a change and move forward, then go ahead and do it,” Rodgers said.

Rodgers emphasized that he wasn’t asking for the final say in personnel matters. He just wanted to be in the loop. Without mentioning the receiver by name, Rodgers cited the Packers’ decision to cut Jake Kumerow last year and wondered why team officials couldn’t have given him the chance to talk them out of making that move.

“The rules are the same for most people, but every now and then there’s some outliers, guys who’ve been in the organization for 17 years and won a few MVPs, where they can be in conversations at a different, higher level,” Rodgers said. “I’m not asking for anything that other great quarterbacks across the last few decades have not gotten, the opportunity to just be in conversation.”

Gutekunst said Rodgers would be involved in the team’s decision-making process, but added that’s not a change from how the Packers have operated in the past.

“Aaron’s had kind of the same input he’s always had, I think, which has been a lot,” Gutekunst said. “He’s earned a place at the table. I think he always has. I think one of the things to this offseason I think is learning how to incorporate that.”

One potential transaction could indicate Rodgers is getting a bigger role.

Veteran receiver Randall Cobb sent out a tweet Wednesday with the message “I’M COMING HOME!” along with a picture of himself in a Packers uniform. Cobb spent his first eight seasons in Green Bay before playing for Dallas in 2019 and Houston in 2020.

Gutekunst said he couldn’t comment on Cobb because a trade with Houston hasn’t been finalized, but Rodgers noted that “I’m really excited Randall’s coming back.”

Rodgers threw for a league-high 48 touchdown passes with only five interceptions last season while helping the Packers lead the league in scoring. He led the NFL in passer rating and completion percentage.

No wonder the Packers were celebrating Rodgers’ arrival in camp. Packers coach Matt LaFleur conceded that “quite frankly we were very unsure” about whether they’d have him back.

Rodgers said conversations with current and former teammates “refueled the fire” as he prepares for his 17th season with the Packers, one year longer than the Green Bay tenures of Hall of Fame quarterbacks Bart Starr and Brett Favre.

“I love my teammates,” Rodgers said. “I love the city. I love my coaches.”

The Packers understand what’s at stake this season with their most notable players facing uncertain futures.

All-Pro receiver Davante Adams, who is entering the last year of his contract, says he’s disappointed in the progress of negotiations and believes he should be the league’s highest-paid wideout. But the biggest questions surround Rodgers and whether this will be his final season in Green Bay.

“I’m definitely not closing the door on anything,” Rodgers said. “I’m always optimistic in the ability to change. I would never want anybody to give up on me, and I feel like I’ve made a lot of changes over the years to try and improve myself both as a person, as a teammate, as a player, and I’m always going to be optimistic in change being possible.

“But you know, (former Packers assistant coach) Darren Perry said a quote one time that has always stuck with me … ‘You can’t motivate people, but you can inspire people.’ And true motivation ultimately comes from within. So people have to be willing to make those changes.”

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Two men were critically wounded in a shooting Wednesday afternoon at a salon in Lawndale on the West Side.

Paramedics picked up two gunshot victims around 2:20 p.m. at a salon in the 3900 block of West 16th Street, according to the Chicago Fire Department.

One man in his 20s and another in his 30s were taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in critical condition, the fire department said.

Chicago police did not immediately release details.

Read more on crime, and track the city’s homicides.

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Dusty Hill, bassist and vocalist for ZZ Top for more than 50 years, has died. He was 72.

According to reports, Hill passed away in his sleep at his Houston, Texas home.

Bandmates Billy Gibbons and Frank Beard issued as statement via social media on Wednesday:

“We are saddened by the news today that our Compadre, Dusty Hill, has passed away in his sleep at home in Houston, TX. We, along with legions of ZZ Top fans around the world, will miss your steadfast presence, your good nature and enduring commitment to providing that monumental bottom to the ‘Top’. We will forever be connected to that “Blues Shuffle in C.” You will be missed greatly, amigo. Frank & Billy”

According to a Facebook post by the band, Hill recently suffered a hip injury, preventing him from touring with the band. At that time, the band said its longtime guitar tech, Elwood Francis, would fill in on bass, slide guitar and harmonica.

Upcoming performances for the trio included a Las Vegas residency at The Venetian Resort scheduled to begin Oct. 8.

Born Joe Michael Hill in Dallas, he, Gibbons and Beard formed ZZ Top in Houston in 1969. The band released its first album, titled “ZZ Top’s First Album,” in 1970. Three years later it scored its breakthrough hit, “La Grange,” which is an ode to the Chicken Ranch, a notorious brothel outside of a Texas town by that name.

The band went on to chart the hits “Tush” in 1975, “Sharp Dressed Man,” “Legs” and “Gimme All Your Lovin'” in 1983, and “Rough Boy” and “Sleeping Bag” in 1985.

In addition to making music, movie/TV fans will remember Hill for his on-screen appearances in “Back to the Future Part III” and “Deadwood.”

ZZ Top was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004. In his introductory remarks at the ceremony, the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards said: “These cats know their blues and they know how to dress it up. When I first saw them, I thought, ‘I hope these guys are not on the run, because that disguise is not going to work.'”

That look — with all three members wearing dark sunglasses and the two frontmen sporting long, wispy beards — became so iconic as to be the subject of a New Yorker cartoon and a joke on “The Simpsons.”

Contributing: Associated Press

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Let’s say there’s an outbreak of deadly parvovirus in your neighborhood. Your beloved golden retriever Red, however, goes into a full-scale panic attack at the sight or smell of a veterinarian. You know the disease is highly communicable and potentially fatal.

There’s a reliable vaccine, but the dog won’t listen. Runs and hides under the porch. Fights the leash like a smallmouth bass on a hook. Rolls over on his back and has to be dragged, panting and drooling. Maybe even bites the hand that feeds him.

God forbid you should force the issue. No vaccine shot for Red. Even a dog has his rights, after all — among them the right to die in agony while shedding the deadly virus all over the neighborhood.

Put that way, the whole national “debate” over the COVID-19 vaccine seems kind of crazy, doesn’t it? When the vaccine refuser is a golden retriever, we take action because we understand that the dog can’t be reasoned with.

(When I lived in the country, I learned to administer my own vaccinations. I also prevented the animals from watching Fox News. It only riles up the cows.)

That said, I agree with the Republican governor of Alabama. Asked what it would take to convince her constituents to get vaccinated — Alabama is among the least-protected in the nation — Gov. Kay Ivey responded, “I don’t know. You tell me. Folks [are] supposed to have common sense. But it’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks. It’s the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down.”

Trouble is, folks tend not to have a lot of common sense when they’re frightened. Not much more than their ancestors in 14th-century Europe who blamed the Black Death on Jews poisoning wells. Also on Gypsies, beggars and foreigners generally. Many lepers were put to death.

Mainly, though, it was the Jews.

Dr. Anthony Fauci isn’t Jewish, but he’ll do for a certain kind of fool. I think we all know the kind I mean.

Alabama physician Brytney Cobia wrote a Facebook post about admitting young, previously healthy patients to a COVID-19 ward in Birmingham.

“One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine,” Dr. Cobia wrote, as quoted on AL.com. “I hold their hand and tell them that I’m sorry, but it’s too late.”

After they die, Cobia continued, “I hug their family members and I tell them the best way to honor their loved one is to go get vaccinated and encourage everyone they know to do the same.

“They cry. And they tell me they didn’t know. They thought it was a hoax. They thought it was political. They thought because they had a certain blood type or a certain skin color they wouldn’t get as sick. They thought it was ‘just the flu.’ But they were wrong. And they wish they could go back. But they can’t.”

She prays that people will learn.

Many white southerners, Politico reports, “are turning down COVID-19 vaccines because they are angry that President Donald Trump lost the election and sick of Democrats in Washington thinking they know what’s best.”

Especially, of course, when they do.

Possibly they’ll listen to Gov. Ivey or Dr. Cobia, but not soon enough, I fear. Besides, as in the 14th century, paranoia is worldwide. There was a recent anti-vaccine rally in London’s Trafalgar Square, with a host of crackpots invoking imaginary, often self-contradictory horrors.

Vaccines are a satanic plot for world domination; or they’re a surveillance technology, turning your body into a 5G transmitter; or they alter your DNA; or they cause infertility. Or vaccines will just flat kill you.

Closer to home, the epicenter of the deadly pandemic surge in Arkansas, where I live, appears to be Branson, Missouri, the cornball country music capital of middle America.

“Branson has a lot of country-western shows,” Dr. Marc Johnson, an epidemiologist at the University of Missouri School of Medicine, told the Daily Beast. “No vaccines. No masks. A bunch of people indoors and air conditioning, tightly packed, listening to music, possibly singing along, i.e. a superspreading event.”

Yee-haw! The town’s mayor has proclaimed, “I DO NOT believe it’s my place, or the place of any politician, to endorse, promote or compel any person to get any vaccine.” He’s all about freedom and liberty, the mayor.

Only what about my freedom not to get infected because some country karaoke fan thinks COVID-19 is a hoax? Government and private employers can’t force people to take the shot, but they can require vaccines as a condition of employment. You already can’t get into Yankee Stadium without proof of vaccination. NFL teams will likely require it, too.

If people had any sense, you wouldn’t have to drag them from under the porch. But history teaches that you must.

Gene Lyons is a columnist with the Arkansas Times.

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