A Chicago-based corporation sent a letter to Hawaii businesses demanding that they stop using the words “aloha” and “poke” together, claiming it infringes on their business name, “Aloha Poke.” It included a veiled threat of legal action. How dare the company claim the name of a local dish as its own. It’s like claiming hamburger and french fries as your own and nobody else can use it in advertising. Sheesh.

It is, however, the logical extension of Hawaii for sale — the prostitution of a people, culture and language in service to the greater gods of American capitalism. This goes to a greater issue of cultural appropriation by those who have no connection to the culture other than to monetize it for their own benefit.

You see it most flagrantly in the tourist mecca of Waikiki and its replicas on other islands. How much more of Hawaii’s soul can be bought for mere pieces of silver before it too disappears into the wasteland of the marketplace? Auwe.

William Hambaro

Waianae

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Protect Medicare for our kupuna

Kudos to AARP Hawaii and Barbara Kim Stanton for raising awareness of the crucial importance of Medicare for the 230,659 Hawaii residents who rely on it. Unfortunately, the article was buried on Page 2 of the local section (“AARP report shows value of Medicare to Hawaii,” Star-Advertiser, July 30).

As Stanton related, Medicare brings to Hawaii $2.4 billion, or 15 percent of all government spending, providing income to hospitals, doctors, nurses, health professionals, drug stores and medical equipment providers who serve our seniors and qualified patients.

Yet, Republicans in Congress and our president, despite campaign promises to the contrary, are striving to emasculate Medicare as we know it. Ironically, they blame lower tax revenues and the increasing deficit that they created with their insane tax cut to benefit corporations and the rich.

It’s past time to end this dangerous hypocrisy by electing progressive and moderate leaders who will fight to preserve this lifeline for our kupuna.

Francis M. Nakamoto

Moanalua Valley

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Mahalo for enduring HECO power outages

Regarding the recently completed underground utility work (“HECO outages begin tonight,” Star-Advertiser, July 16), I want to say mahalo to our customers in Iwilei, Kakaako and Ala Moana for their patience and understanding and to our dedicated employees, who were able to safely finish ahead of schedule.

This was achieved with amazing cooperation, communication and coordination, including incredible support from government agencies.

This project will help to maintain quality and reliable electric service in a rapidly developing area of Honolulu.

We know how important electricity is for the lifestyles we enjoy and for the success of businesses. That’s why we appreciate being able to conduct this work at night, when it was less disruptive to most of our customers.

We also know any outage, even if it’s planned, isn’t welcome. As we work together for a sustainable future powered by more renewable energy, we appreciate the kokua of our customers, employees and communities.

Alan M. Oshima

President and CEO, Hawaiian Electric Co.

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Ige deserves credit for housing progress

It is commendable that Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s leadership and vision paved the way for bringing thousands of housing units and affordable homes to our state. Just as important, Gov. David Ige continued the effort to complete the housing projects, add new projects, renovate existing projects and boldly set forth goals to construct thousands of affordable homes.

Real estate development of large projects is a lengthy process and can easily take five years or more from inception to completion, and therefore could easily overlap from one administration to another.

But for Colleen Hanabusa to politicize this issue by criticizing who should or shouldn’t get the credit for these projects is unacceptable (“Ige’s figures don’t add up,” Star-Advertiser, July 26).

What are her figures?

Audrey Abe

Kaimuki

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Ozawa gave away our money to HART

The Star-Advertiser sure missed the mark with its endorsement of City Council candidate Trevor Ozawa (“Strong candidates for City Council,” Star-Advertiser, Our View, July 27).

The endorsement mentioned his “accountability and transparency regarding the rail transit.”

First, Ozawa buried an amendment in the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation’s (HART) budget that would allow city funds to pay for rail, and now he’s costing taxpayers about $500,000 by playing political games with the rail bonds.

In addition, he increased HART’s authorized spending by $44 million for this fiscal year when he added it to its budget.

We need elected people who will make sure our money is spent the way we do our own money, not by someone who gives it away like it’s free.

Cinnie Frith

Kailua

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Hawaii is no place for negative ads

I can’t believe we’re seeing so many negative political ads on TV. This is Hawaii; we’re better than that.

I will vote against anyone who runs a negative ad, or who has a political action committee (PAC) running a negative ad on their behalf.

Paul Southworth

Waikiki