I'm not crazy about depictions, however symbolic, of a major international organization's Manhattan headquarters being blown to smithereens. I wouldn't be offended, furthermore, if a music label canned an album cover that included such a depiction. Then again, I'm not a libertarian.

So why's Reason magazine clucking about Megadeth's new album "United Abominations"? I have no idea.

Inflammatory cover aside, Dave Mustaine seems to me to have his head on perfectly straight:

"Why doesn't Michael Moore do an expose on the UN?" he asked, adding, "When I see Syria on the Security Council [in 2002-2003], am I supposed to feel secure? It's mad ... They just rely on UNICEF, this one good thing they're doing, to cover up all the stuff that they're not doing, to put them beyond dissent. I'm not impressed. How long are they going to sit by and watch Hezbollah fire Katyusha rockets into Israel from Lebanon? That's a question I'd like answered."

So would a lot of other folks, Dave.

The Post's Ann Hornaday has a nice feature today about the persistent -- and conspicuous -- absence of Hollywood movies that tackle the civil rights era.

I asked the same question a few years ago, focusing in particular on Martin Luther King Jr.

Hornaday homes in on the financial excuses typically proffered by studio executives: the expense of period movies with large casts; the tepid international appeal of historical dramas; the outdated assumption that movies with black stars can't open big. It's not surprising that such execs would reach for anodyne risk-speak; it's understandable, if not, as Hornaday points out, dispositive.

At least in the case of King, I think there's another aspect that they'd be hesitant to broach: his personal life.

"He was a real human being," the writer Shelby Steele told me. He added that a truthful biopic, one that dealt with, say, marital unfaithfulness -- one that "showed us the human being, not just the legend" -- would demand a filmmaker who's "not afraid of being politically incorrect."

This is hardly the proverbial elephant in the room -- just one of a host of reasons why Hollywood can't get its act together and tell these stories.

Just when you thought the poor girl's PR troubles couldn't get any worse, now the Humane Society is on her case for reportedly buying a $3,000 Yorkshire Terrier with little thought to its origin or proper care.

Britney "is setting a damaging example to the public," thunders the Humane Society's Stephanie Shain in a press statement. "Most dogs sold in pet stores come from puppy mills -- factory-like facilities, churning out purebred and 'designer' puppies in large numbers. Puppy mills look only to make a profit; commonly disregard the dog's physical and emotional health; and do not adhere to sound breeding practices."

As lamentable, according to Shain, is the insouciance with which Britney apparently made her puppy purchase: "Choosing a dog is a major lifestyle decision that should not be taken lightly. We suggest that people take time to choose a member of their family, and to be sure they are working with a reputable breeder."

Taking adequate time to expand one's family? Working with a reputable breeder? Methinks the Humane Society is barking up the wrong Britney.

Aside from a few John Grisham novels, and a few more Tom Clancys, I've never been much of a middlebrow fiction reader. It's not out of snobbery; I just figure, with so little reading time at my disposal, how can I justify a quickie beach read when the bookshelf groans with unread classics, not to mention contemporary literary fiction?

Compared to movie consumption, reading time is scarce. It takes a deliriously mindless two hours to catch the new "Die Hard." But, at least in my case, it takes a couple of days to get through even an airport paperback.

Then there's the near certainty that I'm not missing all that much. A friend who's in a creative-writing master's program and I were talking recently about the abortion that was Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code": careless nonsense such as, "Walking towards the faucet, he splashed his face with water." Er, not until you got to the faucet, could you have splashed your face.

After reading this, though, I might have to rethink my strategy. In his profile of thriller writer Harlan Coben, New York Times reporter Eric Konigsberg relates that he found himself in a state of "twitchy agony" whenever he was diverted from finishing a Coben novel.

Coben's might not be the most felicitously written stories, says Konigsberg, but a novelist who's that physically compelling must be doing something right.

Right?

(On a similar note, here's Ross Douthat on a certain "Harry's" literary reputation.)

I caught my beloved kids from Philly, Marah, at Jammin' Java Wednesday night, and the Bielanko brothers, on one of their customarily hilarious between-song-banter tangents, went on and on, only half-jokingly, about their passion for "Shark Week."

Shark week? I wondered. Some kind of subcultural coastal community ritual I'm not aware of? A national holiday I've neglected to observe?

I've really been missing out, evidently.

"Favorite bad albums": I love this game. I want to play, too.

Let's define terms first, though: "Bad" as in, I-know-this-is-horrible-but-it's-my-guilty-pleasure bad? Or as in this-is-actually-kinda-good-but-perhaps-underappreciated?

If the former, I think I'm going to have to go with Genesis' "Invisible Touch." What can I say? That it grabs right hold of my heart? Let's not go that far, but someone cue up that Tony Banks synth riff for me right now. And, while you're out, dig up that episode of "Magnum P.I." that had "Tonight Tonight Tonight" all over it. What other band could toss a prog-rock opus like "Domino" at you, and then sneak Top 40 creampuffs like "In Too Deep" and "Throwing It All Away" through the back door?

If the latter -- truthfully, I'm not sure this counts, but I'm sure someone out there will wince when he or she gets past this em dash -- I'll nominate Stevie Nicks' "This Wild Heart." (This is assuming that her first solo album, "Bella Donna," which I consider a straight-up good album, is still a critically reputable effort as well.)

Prince's chintzy little keyboard riff in "Stand Back" tickles me every time (here's the story on that collaboration, if you care to know). And "If Anyone Falls" -- more '80s synth! The kind not coveted today by vintage-analogue indie-rock connoisseurs!

I am not ashamed.

Following up for the (no doubt) large contingent of readers out there who care about my reading adventures, I can now report I just got through Harlan Coben's thriller "Just One Look."

Not having read a mass-market paperback in a long time -- again, this is not out of snobbery, rather, leisure time management -- I will say that, while I didn't quite experience a "twitchy agony," I did feel strongly compelled to Find Out What Happens. There's an obvious formula to how Coben works: a sort of reverse-engineering style of storytelling that reveals crucial details in well-timed, tantalizing dribs and drabs. Obvious -- but highly effective. (And I understand this was not one of his better regarded books.)

However: Gawd, does Coben write clunkily! I've got no problem with the breathless three- and four-word sentences; the gone-in-a-blink chapters; the digestible newspaper-style paragraph breaks. It goes with the territory. I understand the imperative to keep the story moving; as Coben has said, he's competing with TV and DVDs and wants to force you, at all cost, to keep your easily-distracted eyeballs on his books.

What jars is the almost pathological reliance on cliches and conversational slackness ("that kind of thing"; "stuff like that"; "from the get-go," etc.). Every character, at some point, is said to have "shrugged" in reply to something or other. One guy is actually described as a "creepazoid"! Another does "the medical research" for a pharmaceutical company. Not medical research -- the medical research.

This is the rule; the exceptions were some mildly compelling passages on the angst of upper-middle-class suburban motherhood. Coben wasn't terribly original here, but I appreciated the departure from the mechanical and procedural -- and I came away with the hunch that he could do better. If he cared to try.

Coben was asked if, like "Mystic River" author Dennis Lehane, if he'd simply like more time to write as a reward for commercial success.

"No," he said, according to the Atlantic profile. "Dennis and I don't do the same thing. He's somebody who comes out with a book every two years or so." A more flexible deadline is a recipe for procrastination. "My first book was due October 1, and by spectacular coincidence, I finished it on September 30," he reportedly said.

I can certainly relate to that; I'm not asking for Henry James here. Neither do I want to rehash the purported mutual exclusivity of great plotting and great prose writing or Tom Wolfe's social realism crusade. What I want is roundly satisfying middlebrow fiction. Where do I turn? John le Carre?