Last year the State Department declared Venezuela's consul general in Miami persona non grata -- Latin for unwelcome or unacceptableperson -- and expelled her from the United States.
"Throwing a shoe or hitting someone with a shoe or showing the bottom of your shoe when sitting with legs up on a chair and facing another person all are culturally unacceptable and are considered to be a grave insult and belittling to a person, " Shirazi said.
As barbaric and unacceptable as this type of punishment appears, I could not avoid appreciating the sincerity and despair of the person speaking to me.