Cheer

Cheers and congratulations to the Glade Run Lake Conservancy on a job well done. Glade Run Lake was drained in 2011 over fears that its outdated earthen dam was faulty. Six years and $4 million later, the dam is rebuilt, the lake is refilled and the park is ready to host future generations of visitors. About 150 people joined Conservancy President Siggy Pehel and former Gov. Tom Corbett for a ribbon cutting on Wednesday at the 52-acre lake in Middlesex Township.

What happens next is hard to measure but unmistakably real. Hundreds of visitors will flock to this gem of a park, bringing with them tourist dollars and taking home warm memories of Butler County. Whatever has been invested in this project will be paid back, with interest. This should be mentioned for the benefit of the who have criticized it as a project that should fall outside the realm of government. It’s a debate worth continuing, but not right now. Let’s simply celebrate the restoration.

Did you hear that? It sounded like a red-winged blackbird.

Jeer

Call it Keystone Cantinflas. Governmental impropriety gets hard to ferret out in Pennsylvania when the investigating agencies are under suspicion, too — or at least, they’re simmering in a stew of conflicting interests.

Cantinflas — his real name was Mario Moreno — was a beloved comic film star famous for muddling conversations. He was a native of Mexico, but his brand of humor would be right at home in Harrisburg.

On Monday, Lt. Gov. Mike Stack’s office issued a statement confirming a state Office of Inspector General’s investigation into what it called “staffing issues.” The statement followed reports that Inspector General Bruce Beemer was looking into potential verbal abuse by Stack and his wife toward staff at the lieutenant governor’s mansion at Fort Indiantown Gap.

The abuse is reported to have extended to the Stacks’ state police security detail.

The investigation was ordered by none other than Stack’s higher-up, Gov. Tom Wolf. It’s not clear why Wolf went to Inspector General Beemer for this probe. The office normally works to ferret out fraud and abuse in Commonwealth entitlement and other programs. Normally the state police would investigate, and the Attorney General’s office would prosecute any wrongdoing. But this is Pennsylvania. Beemer is the former attorney general, who succeeded Kathleen Kane when Kane was stripped of prosecutorial authority — another sad tale of political corruption. And the state police are the alleged victims of the Stacks’ misconduct. So there’s a conflict of interest for the troopers.

But isn’t it just as much a conflict for Stack’s political running-mate, Gov. Wolf, to direct the investigation? While it’s no secret that Stack and Wolf are not friends, they do jointly hold our state’s executive authority — and one of them is investigating the other’s — to put it with euphemistic delicacy — “staffing issues.”

Could the state Legislature please step in and investigate?

Jeer

The first impulse is to agree with U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, that it might be dangerous for a China-based company to buy Westinghouse.

Yet the more we think about it, the less troubling the idea seems.

Westinghouse, which is owned by Toshiba of Japan, employs about 2,500 people at its Cranberry Township headquarters. The company filed for bankruptcy on March 29. A Chinese company reportedly is interested in buying it.

For beginners, how likely is it that China would do anything to sabotage its own investment? Regardless of whether it’s broken, bombed or simply interrupted, an idled power grid isn’t making any money for its owner.

But Casey worries, with good reason, about a more sensitive target. The Scranton Democrat cites concerns about energy technology falling into the hands of the Chinese. But how do his concerns apply to the more than 300,000 mainland Chinese currently enrolled in U.S. colleges — including a multitude in Pennsylvania colleges and universities — absorbing all varieties of cutting-edge technology?

It is an altogether different issue that portions of the U.S. electrical grid are vulnerable to infiltration and attack. It’s likely that all kinds of clever university students, regardless of national origin, can hack, hijack and shut down the grid right now. The issue has little to do anymore with ownership or geopolitical boundaries.

We admit it might be naive to consider letting Chinese interests acquire a stake in a U.S. nuclear company like Westinghouse. But it’s equally naive to think the country’s power grid is safe just because China doesn’t own it.