What year is this?

Mark "The Bird" Fydrich is in the news. There's a swine flu epidemic. A brain-dead woman lives on, without life support...

1976, right?
Trick question: It's 2009. Or at least April, 2009.

The Bird has died, alas. The swine flu hasn't killed anyone in the States yet. And the brain-dead woman is not Karen Ann Quinlan -- it's Carrie Prejean.

Does it ever seem to you that America during our lifetime has been like an empty gravy boat on a lazy susan?