Salma Hayek will be in list of 'Knight'

Salma Hayek

The Puss In Boots actress was among those named by President Nicolas Sarkozy to receive the Légion d'Honneur Sunday. Hayek, 45, will enter the five-tiered honor academy with the grade of Chevalier or "Knight."

Announced in the President's official New Year's list, Hayek will receive a formal induction, which involves a Presidential medal pinning. Her induction will likely occur at the Élysées Palace within the next two months, says a source.

Founded by Napoleon in 1802 as a merit award, the Legion of Honor is awarded to military personnel and civilians for service to France. It is not exclusively reserved for the French and is often awarded to figures of international standing.

Past recipients – who are entitled to wear a small rosette pin indicating their rank – include Jerry Lewis, Clint Eastwood, Robert Redford and Robert De Niro.

In making the grade this year, Hayek's honor was also something of a unique family affair: her father-in-law, retired business magnate Francois Pinault, was promoted in the same list to the Legion's exalted rank of Grand Officer.

Top fashion moments of 2011 Number 12 by latimes.com

A look at the top fashion moments of 2011

Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher

 Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher teamed with jeweler Jack Vartanian to design Valentine's Day baubles shaped like little handcuffs. But the jewelry wasn't charmed: a few months later this couple split.

Top 10 Mistresses 2011 by TIME.com Special Report

Jaimee Grubbs

Jaimee Grubbs

It's unclear why onetime reality show contestant Jaimee Grubbs, 24, decided to talk about an alleged 31-month affair with Tiger Woods. The Californian waitress, who had appeared alongside her ex-boyfriend on VH1's guy-improvement show Tool Academy, discussed her liaisons with Woods in Us Weekly magazine. She described their relationship as "romantic" — as well as sexual — and never indicated that things had gone sour. But the evidence she presented for her claims — steamy text messages and a voicemail where someone purportedly sounding like Woods asks Grubbs to help him cover up his cheating tracks — paints a picture of a man who realized the heat was on. In a press release posted on his website, Woods apologized Dec. 2 for unspecified "transgressions" days after a one-car accident in the early morning hours the day after Thanksgiving left the media buzzing about a possible domestic dispute. Nor was Grubbs the only alleged mistress on the scene: the National Enquirer reported before the accident on rumors that Tiger had had a relationship with New York club promoter Rachel Uchitel, 34, — a story which she vehemently denies — while Life & Style magazine claimed that Tiger had been seeing Kalika Moquin, 27, a Las Vegas marketing agent, for months.

Post-affair: Grubbs has said that she was "hurt" to hear of other women possibly being in the picture. As, no doubt, was Tiger's wife Elin Nordegren.

President and first lady make best dressed list

Michelle Obama

Barack and Michelle Obama are edging out Hollywood stars on Vanity Fair's International Best-Dressed List.

The president makes the list for the first time in issues out Wednesday, joining his wife, who has been named twice before.

No longer on the list is Angelina Jolie, although her husband Brad Pitt remains, based on a poll of fashion insiders. Other stars getting the honor are Penelope Cruz, Anne Hathaway, NBC correspondent Tiki Barber and James Bond star Daniel Craig.

The Obamas weren't the only stylish political dressers named. French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy made the list along with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his companion, Diana Taylor.

Anniversary Gift Giving Tip

When giving an anniversary gift, remember that it is not the amount of money that you spend that is important. Anniversary gifts should show your partner how much you love him or her, not how much money you are willing to spend.

Think about giving your partner something that money cannot buy. This could be writing a poem, composing a song, or painting him or her a picture that speaks of your love. You could also surprise your partner with a special "treat" they have always wanted. This could be reuniting him or her with a past friend, or finding a special book or toy they remembered having as a child.

Traditional Anniversary Gifts by Year
 
Here is a listing of the "traditional" anniversary gifts, year-by-year:

1st: paper
2nd: cotton
3rd: leather
4th: linen
5th: wood
6th: iron
7th: copper
8th: bronze
9th: pottery
10th: tin or aluminum
15th: crystal
20th: china
25th: silver
50th: gold

Kim Kardashian Posts Family's Christmas Card

Kim Kardashian Posts Family's Christmas Card

Kim Kardashian

Twas the week before Christmas and down in L.A., the Kardashian clan sent some cards our way. The family gathered as Kris Jenner planned, and they hoped good photos could land Kim a new man.

Most families resort to cute candid shots or strike a simple pose for their Christmas cards. But that would be far too trashy for the famous family, who opted for a professional 3-D photo shoot with Nick Saglimbeni. Early this morning Kim posted the photos on her blog, and added, "I love our family Christmas cards shoots and I think this one looks amazing!" Well while she says amazing, I say interesting.

There are so many things wrong with Kardashian card. Do they really think the all black wardrobe and bitchy faces will spread Christmas cheer? It's like they all looked at Medusa and turned into high-fashion stone statues. And not even well-dressed statues. Well, except for Khloe.

I thought Kim learned on Dancing with the Stars that she looks God-awful in a tuxedo, but I guess Koutney's the only one who learns from her fashion faux pas. Maybe Kris made her wear more masculine clothes since she's the only daughter without a man. I mean come on, even her 14-year-old sister Kylie has a boyfriend. Speaking of younger sisters and fashion mistakes, why is Kendall wearing a cooch-revealing dress? Sure, she's 16 but that doesn't mean she should start dressing like a slut.

The only saving grace in this Christmas card is the dynamic duo of Rob and Mason. As the cutest members of the family, they were the only ones who could warm my Grinch-like heart.

Person of the year 2011 by TIMES, The Protester

The Protester

Mohamed Bouazizi

Prelude to the Revolutions

It began in Tunisia, where the dictator's power grabbing and high living crossed a line of shamelessness, and a commonplace bit of government callousness against an ordinary citizen — a 26-year-old street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi — became the final straw. Bouazizi lived in the charmless Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid, 125 miles south of Tunis. On a Friday morning almost exactly a year ago, he set out for work, selling produce from a cart. Police had hassled Bouazizi routinely for years, his family says, fining him, making him jump through bureaucratic hoops. On Dec. 17, 2010, a cop started giving him grief yet again. She confiscated his scale and allegedly slapped him. He walked straight to the provincial-capital building to complain and got no response. At the gate, he drenched himself in paint thinner and lit a match.

"My son set himself on fire for dignity," Mannoubia Bouazizi told me when I visited her.

"In Tunisia," added her 16-year-old daughter Basma, "dignity is more important than bread." 

In Egypt the incitements were a preposterously fraudulent 2010 national election and, as in Tunisia, a not uncommon act of unforgivable brutality by security agents. In the U.S., three acute and overlapping money crises — tanked economy, systemic financial recklessness, gigantic public debt — along with ongoing revelations of double dealing by banks, new state laws making certain public-employee-union demands illegal and the refusal of Congress to consider even slightly higher taxes on the very highest incomes mobilized Occupy Wall Street and its millions of supporters. In Russia it was the realization that another six (or 12) years of Vladimir Putin might not lead to greater prosperity and democratic normality.

In Sidi Bouzid and Tunis, in Alexandria and Cairo; in Arab cities and towns across the 6,000 miles from the Persian Gulf to the Atlantic Ocean; in Madrid and Athens and London and Tel Aviv; in Mexico and India and Chile, where citizens mobilized against crime and corruption; in New York and Moscow and dozens of other U.S. and Russian cities, the loathing and anger at governments and their cronies became uncontainable and fed on itself. 

The stakes are very different in different places. In North America and most of Europe, there are no dictators, and dissidents don't get tortured. Any day that Tunisians, Egyptians or Syrians occupy streets and squares, they know that some of them might be beaten or shot, not just pepper-sprayed or flex-cuffed. The protesters in the Middle East and North Africa are literally dying to get political systems that roughly resemble the ones that seem intolerably undemocratic to protesters in Madrid, Athens, London and New York City. "I think other parts of the world," says Frank Castro, 53, a Teamster who drives a cement mixer for a living and helped occupy Oakland, Calif., "have more balls than we do."

In Egypt and Tunisia, I talked with revolutionaries who were M.B.A.s, physicians and filmmakers as well as the young daughters of a provincial olive picker and a supergeeky 29-year-old Muslim Brotherhood member carrying a Tigger notebook. The Occupy movement in the U.S. was set in motion by a couple of magazine editors — a 69-year-old Canadian, a 29-year-old African American — and a 50-year-old anthropologist, but airline pilots and grandmas and shop clerks and dishwashers have been part of the throngs.