High-ranking Cuban government officials, including President Miguel Diaz-Canel, recently conducted a five-day festival of concerts, art exhibits, and educational colloquiums to celebrate what would have been Fidel Castro’s 100th birthday on Aug. 13. He died in 2016.On August 1, 1953, in the mountains of Cuba, a Rural Guard squad led by Lt. Pedro Sarria found Castro sleeping in a hut. The soldiers wanted to kill the guerrilla leader, but Sarria thought law should prevail. After a couple of years in prison, Castro was released, and a few years later, in 1959, he led the revolution that installed him in power. Among the many words Castro spewed forth in seven-hour speeches before the masses, a single line delivered in 1961 captures his essence: “The revolution is all; everything else is nothing.”He got the last half of that zinger right. Nothing has pretty much defined the living conditions and material well-being of the Cuban people since that speech almost seven decades ago. The Soviet-style economic model Castro so adored is as worse now as it has ever been. Prolonged power outages run up to 20 hours a day in most of the provinces. Even access to drinking water is precarious. Garbage is piled high on city streets. Food shortages are rampant in Havana and other cities, while crates of food rot in port facilities that lack transportation. The trucks hauling produce got no gas due to President Donald Trump’s fuel embargo set in motion last January, combined with the near end of subsidized oil imported from the former socialist brotherhood in Venezuela. The tourism industry, which provided many jobs and lots of dinero pumping into the economy, has all but collapsed. This has been especially hard on the putas — no need for translation — since these women are dependent on the kindness of generous tourists visiting the island seeking to sample its tropical flavors.