Mid-January was blessed with two grand American spectaculars, standing at opposite ends of the spectrum of civic gravity

* Mid-January was blessed with two grand American spectaculars, standing at opposite ends of the spectrum of civic gravity. On the one hand were the solemnities of the Inauguration; on the other, a Trump wedding. In the grand American tradition of gaudy extravagance, our most colorful billionaire, TV personality, and bestselling author took his third (if we have counted right) bride, a "super-model" from Slovenia, at an Episcopal service in Palm Beach, Florida.

Bride and groom both promised to honor each other "for richer, for poorer," to some suppressed sniggers from the congregation. The main wedding cake was a seven-tier number weighing 200 pounds, covered with about 3,000 preformed white roses made of icing. The United States, a clever person once said, had passed from barbarism to decadence without having passed through any intermediate stage of civilization. Phooey. The injunction "if you've got it, flaunt it" will always have its proponents, and, as the career of Donald Trump illustrates, this is still a nation in which anyone at all can get it.