NEW YORK - They say that the idea of the United Nations was really first conceived in a poem Locksby Hall written by English poet Alfred (Lord) Tennyson in 1837. He anticipated the horrors and the hopes of a century later and described a future in which nations launched wars and then saw the light by creating the Parliament of Man or a federation of the world to bind nations in a universal law. Indeed, since then there had been attempts to fulfill that dream of mankind, starting with the Congress of Vienna and followed later by the League of Nations after World War I. It was only after World War II that that dream became a reality with the founding of the United Nations over fifty years ago. All this is part of the history of the UN penned by Paul Kennedy in his new book The Parliament of Man: The Past, Present and Future of the United Nations.” In it, he wrote about the urgent need for reforms, such as the timely proposal (in the light of the recent conflict in Lebanon) for the creation of a UN standing army and an intelligence service of a UN military committee.

He allays fears of some American politicians that such moves might violate national sovereignty, and says their fears are self-serving and obstructionist or mere paranoia. Just like in the past, the proposal is now being debated in the corridors of the world organization. These are critical tests for the UN General Assembly, particularly the Security Council, with peacekeeping missions all over the news these days. The eminent Yale historian appears to reflect the long-time hope of UN officials like Secretary General Kofi Annan and others who have called for the creation of a UN standing army in carrying out peacekeeping activities all over the globe. A critical reviewer of Kennedy’s book -Michael Hirsch, author of a book on why America is squandering its chance to build a better world - says that the Yale historian ably diagnosed the failures of early attempts to launch peace missions, and that he also analyzed well the problems which have blocked reforms in the UN Charter, especially in the Security Council where the permanent five powers, composed of the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France, have thwarted proposals to allow more members in the powerful council. But Hirsch also said that Kennedy was describing a globalist fantasy because none of the major powers would ever likely grant such power to the minor nations. He was referring to Kennedy’s discussion of peacekeeping and peace enforcement issues. He also devoted pages in his book on the postwar UN economic agenda which unfortunately atrophied with the establishment of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Of course, Paul Kennedy is to be commended for all his efforts to explain the real value of the United Nations in the global system today.

When I wrote about Steve Allen’s new film “Scoop,” I failed to note that the movie, supposedly his funniest, was littered with asides about the press which, if seen by idealistic and starry-eyed journalism students, would surely discourage them from becoming part of the noble profession in the Fourth Estate.

For Allen it must have been his kind of revenge for having been bloodied in the press in the past. Here, as he has always been doing in his other films, he plays a character who imitates a reporter by brandishing wads of cash to elicit information from news sources. This is really a departure from other films by other filmmakers about journalists who for decades have been depicted as moral and ethical practitioners of the mass media. An exception is Lois Lane, the archetypal female journalist, who bears Superman’s child, but is rewarded not with professional derision, but with a Pulitzer Prize. Anyway, Steve Allen’s “Scoop” is about Scarlett Johansson, who plays an ing_nue reporter. She gets a tip about a series of salacious murders committed by a young aristocrat. A ghost of a newshound passes on the scoop to her, and there were hints that she slept with her sources in order to get her scoop. Watch the movie lasting 96 minutes for you to find out that it is not, as I noted in a previous column, funny at all.