Bush gets the shoe(s) - mini rant

It's funny how much noise that particular video has made. I can think of at least half my facebook acquaintances who have either posted it, or commented on it. (My brother's status is he's donating shoes for the cause). A lot of people have found it amusing, and a lot of people have wished he'd not missed, and a lot of people even felt vindicated. But my issue with this is not in the fact itself, but in the reporting of it, namely, the inclusion in every report on Western media of the sentence explaining that the (sole of a) shoe is a highest insult in the Arab world. Did that really need to be explained? Do people in Europe and America throw shoes at each other as signs of affection?