Rum and Coca Cola: Fidel Castro is dead at age 90. The lawyer whose small band of jungle revolutionaries toppled the corrupt government of Cuba and established a communist government that has annoyed and sometimes threatened the United States, ruled Cuba from 1959 until he turned over the reins to his brother Raul in 2006.

He became a world figure, a symbol of revolution, running an island country that today has only 11 million residents.

Castro established a communist government in which education and medicine are entirely free. In the first days of the revolution he sent teachers into the remote corners of Cuba to teach everyone how to read. His medical schools have sent doctors all over the world.

But he was a dictator who ruled the details of life in Cuba and sent his detractors to prison. Life in Cuba was made even harsher by an American economic blockade that has left Cuba frozen in the 1950s, unable to keep up with the modern world. They famously still drive cars made in the 1950s.

In 1962 he brought the world to the brink of nuclear war allowing Russia to install nuclear-missile launchers in Cuba. That led to a tense 13-day standoff between Cuba, Russia, and the United States that ended with the missiles being removed.

Castro’s Cuba has survived 11 American presidents, most of whom publicly turned their backs on Castro while keeping back channel contacts to try to improve relations. Finally, in 2014 President Obama re-established normal relations with Cuba and today there are regular air flights between Cuba and Miami.

Running the Numbers: Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein yesterday filed for a recount of the vote in Wisconsin and plans to file also in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Stein’s campaign says they have raised $5 million for the effort and have raised their goal to $7 million.

The Obama administration said yesterday that despite the efforts of Russian computer hackers to undermine the election, the results are valid. “We stand behind our election results, which accurately reflect the will of the American people,” the statement said. Well, kinda, sorta. Trump won the Electoral College and Hillary Clinton has a lead of more than two million in the popular vote.

Conflict and Interest: As protests continue against the Dakota Access Pipeline, the Associated Press points out that president-elect Donald Trump owns stock in the company building the pipeline, as well as the oil company Phillips 66, which also owns a piece of the pipeline company.

The Standing Rock Sioux are trying to block the pipeline because they believe it will endanger their water supply and destroy heritage sites on their land. As president, it will be part of Trump’s job to decide whether the pipeline will be finished along its currently plotted route.

The law does not prohibit a sitting president from have conflicts of interest between his office and his business. Trump told the NY Times, “the law is totally on my side, meaning, the president can’t have a conflict of interest.”

A Times editorial said, “He’s wrong. A president can, of course, have conflicts of interest, and an ethical leader would do everything possible to dispel those conflicts, whether required by law or not.”

The Joy of Shopping: Holiday shoppers descended on the malls and big box stores for the annual shopping mayhem known as “Black Friday.” CNN posted a montage of Black Friday brawls. Those door buster deals sure bring them in, and some shoppers like to share the joy with an ounce of lead. At least six shootings broke out across the country, resulting in two deaths. One man was shot and killed in a dispute over a parking space outside a Nevada Walmart and another was killed outside Philadelphia.

World: At least 44 people died and a 100 were injured in the collision of two trains east of Tehran, the capital of Iran. One train had broken down and was standing still when it was rammed by the other.

The enormity of some accidents that happen around the world is amazing. In China two days ago 74 people died in the collapse of a construction scaffold.

Spoiler Alert: For those of you who are fans of the television series, Gilmore Girls and have not seen the final episode, stop reading. For those who never watched, don’t care, and just want the shortest route to the conclusion about a single mother raising her teenage daughter, here are the last words of the series. Rory: “Mom?” Lorelai: “Yeah?” Rory: “I’m pregnant.”

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