America has seen tough times before. During the Great Depression, people survived by eating dandelions and small animals they shot in their backyards. During World War II, the government rationed items like gas, sugar, and butter. And now, the Greatest Depression has forced Americans to revisit those times by making personal sacrifices. Like Carrie Isaac, a stay-at-home mom in Colorado Springs, Colorado, who tells the Journal that she has learned, in the current economic environment, to make do without something very important.

On a recent weekend, we got to spend a lot of time in the same room as Lance Armstrong (and a few minutes actually talking to him!) as he came to town for the opening of a benefit art show called "Stages" at Deitch Projects, went home to Austin to trick-or-treat with his four kids, and came back again to auction off some sweet artist-designed Trek bikes at Sotheby's, all to raise money to fight cancer. You can read all about it in this week's magazine, and for you fans, here's some additional stuff we learned from the seven-time Tour de France winner.

Last month, freelance writer Mike Albo got fired from his "Critical Shopper" gig at the New York Times after availing himself of a free Thrillist junket to Jamaica. With him on the trip was former MTV News correspondent turned freelancer Gideon Yago. When we ran into Yago last night at the premiere of The Messenger, we asked him if the Times was being fair.

It was all of, oh, a week ago that the public option was the major "line in the sand" imperiling health-care reform. To be sure, the public option is still a big problem — just yesterday, Senator Joe Lieberman said that he'll filibuster any bill that includes it. But suddenly a new wedge issue capable of destroying the entire legislation has emerged: abortion. In order to wrangle up enough support for her historic health-care-reform bill on Saturday, Nancy Pelosi was forced to allow a vote on an anti-abortion amendment, which easily passed with the support of 64 pro-life Democrats. The Stupak-Pitts amendment, as it's known, not only prohibits the government's public option from covering abortions, but also prevents private insurers from covering abortions for people receiving government subsidies.

Greg Van Voorhis, a 30-year-old teacher at the Bronx School of Law and Finance, was suspended for giving students a Chuck Palahniuk story "about masturbation," per the Post. Our first thought when we read this: How bad could the story have been? Probably not anything worse than teenagers hear or see or read on the Internet.

It wasn't just the humiliation of being the second-largest recipient of TARP funds, the discomfort that came with being dogged by questions about bonuses given to Merrill Lynch, or that the combination of the above meant he was slowly losing his grip on the position he had held as Bank of America's chairman and CEO that prompted Ken Lewis to throw up his hands and say "fuck it" this past September. This weekend, the Journal gave us a revelatory look into the days leading up to his resignation.

Governor Paterson is set to deliver a rare address to a joint session of the State Legislature at 3 p.m. today to press lawmakers on his plan to close New York's $3.2 billion deficit. But he'll need to really crank up that Paterson charm to get everyone on board with his proposed cuts to health-care and education funding. Democratic Senator Carl Kruger unveiled his own proposal over the weekend, which removed "everything that would inflict pain" from Paterson's plan. That's the type of wishful thinking and lack of resolve that got us into the budget mess in the first place, Paterson's camp contends, but vulnerable Senate Democrats, especially those in the suburbs with school districts that will be hit hard by the cuts, are wary of a voter backlash. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver isn't onboard with Paterson's plan, either, meaning that the solution to the budget mess is cloudy all around. So, yeah, the special session Paterson has called for tomorrow looks about as promising as one would expect.

State Dems plan to snub Gov. Paterson's call for health, education cuts [NYDN]
Dave's budget cuts in trouble after poll purge [NYP]

You think the people at Goldman Sachs don't know that you think of them as greedy, unrepentant bastards who owe their robust health to a prolonged feeding on the lifeblood of the American taxpayer? They know, as CEO Lloyd Blankfein told the Times of London this week, that "people are pissed off, mad, and bent out of shape," that the CEO could "slit [his] wrists and people would cheer." It's been said that Goldman has been going on a "charm offensive" to combat their "image problem," and this seems to be true: If the quotes the Times' John Arlidge picked up on his visit to 85 Broad are any indication, the gang is definitely newly humbled, mindful of optics, and wanting to clear a few things up.

Clear your calendars! The remains of the lives of Bernie and Ruth Madoff are being auctioned off this weekend at the Midtown Sheraton, and the U.S. Marshals office has made literally everything but the kitchen sink available: the wooden decoy ducks from the Montauk home, the Madoffs' personalized stationery, a portrait of a "wrinkled Indian," at least ten pairs of Ruth's shoes. The merch overall sounds not so great (fourteen translucent paper cups with "Beach" written on them?), but the Feds seem to be counting on the novelty value to drive the prices up: For example, the pièce de résistance — a blue satin jacket with orange trim labeled and embroidered "NY Mets," "MADF," "25," and "Madoff" is valued at $500 to $720, more than some of Ruth's furs.

US Marshals Service National Jewelry Auction (New York City) [Gaston and Sheehan Auctioners]