We had a few tense moments in the Babalú kitchen this morning when Tía Cuca and Abuela Marucha tried to settle their culinary differences with sharp butcher knives. But cooler heads thankfully prevailed, so here is your Babalú ajiaco for this Tuesday:

• The elites party in Havana like it's 1959 as undead dictator Fidel Castro throws a shindig to celebrate the release of his two-volume 1,000-page memoirs, which also happen to be the Castro regime's latest contribution to medicine since it is an effective cure for insomnia. And to add insult to injury, the Castro dynasty decided to televise the entire event on Cuban State television just in case anyone on the island has forgotten they are the slaves and the Castros are the slave masters.

• On this date in history in 1962, President John F. Kennedy imposed a full embargo on the Castro dictatorship. Fifty years later, historians are still wondering where Kennedy found the time to do this and fulfill other presidential duties while he was busy having sex romps with 19-year-old mistresses on his wife's bed.

• Students from Marquette University are planning to travel to Cuba to study theater. While the study abroad program is now being called "Drama and Performance in Cuba Today," we find the program's original title more appropriate: "Theater of the Absurd."

• A California university student posted a question on an online forum asking for advice on how to travel to Cuba so he can learn and study Spanish. Here are a few Spanish words to help him get started: miseria, represión, violencia, hambre, golpizas, prisión, muerte, humillación... Any questions?

• NPR gleefully reports on the increase in American tourists vacationing in Cuba. The astounding increase of repression on the island that has accompanied this development? Well, that is not so important or newsworthy.

• Not to beat a dead cow, but Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff continues to suffer from hoof-in-mouth disease. While in the company of the most repressive, violent, and murderous dictatorship in the Western hemisphere, she complainingly moos about the U.S. Naval base in Guantanamo.