Perhaps you hit the eggnog a little too hard at the party last night. Or maybe champagne did you in, and now you're cursing that "friend" who kept filling your glass.

No matter how it happened, though, you now have a hangover and will do just about anything to get rid of it. Doctors advise drinking copious amounts of water and taking vitamins and aspirin. Some people swear by grease--burgers and fried eggs are popular antidotes in America. Others, like the Japanese, follow a more virtuous regimen of fruits and green tea. In this month's magazine and on our website, we take a look at some international suggestions for how to cope with the effects of one too many.

Hangovers happen to anyone who drinks too much alcohol, but some people fare worse than others. It all depends on what you drank--some say clear booze is less toxic--how much you drank, what size you are, and possibly even your temperament (if you've had a particularly difficult time of it lately, or you're prone to anger or anxiety, you may suffer more severely than others).

One of the biggest contributors to the wretched hangover is dehydration. Alcohol is a diuretic, meaning it makes you go to the bathroom frequently, and every time you go, you lose a little more water. While you're having fun quaffing drinks, your body is quickly becoming dehydrated and will punish you for it the next day. Pounding headaches, nausea, and dizziness are just a few of the delightful ways a hangover can manifest itself, so consider this a warning and watch how much you swill at those holiday soirees.

Now, that said, even the most careful among us gets carried away sometimes. And it seems everyone has a secret remedy. One of my friends swears by bananas and ice cold Coke. Another says a chocolate milkshake works wonders. Who else wants to weigh in? What do I take if I'm hung over in Paris? Or Puerto Rico? Let's hear it! And oh, cheers. But clink the glasses together softly, please -- my head is killing me.

-Catherine Barker

The shoes tossed at President Bush by a journalist in Iraq are the insult that’s been kicked round the world. Many Westerners believe that the thrower acted inappropriately.

He did, however, act in accordance with his cultural traditions. There’s a long history of foot-based disapproval in the Middle East, as well as in other parts of the world. Pop Omnivore spoke with anthropologist David Givens, an expert in nonverbal communications, to learn more about symbolic insults. We’d also like to ask our readers: Have you ever been symbolically insulted? Or have you unknowingly insulted someone in another culture by your actions?

Was the shoe thrower’s action typical human behavior?
It is pretty much a universal trait of humans to have nonverbal gestures that are negative and insulting.

There’s no doubt what it means to throw shoes at someone, is there?
I think most people know. Your feet walk on dirt. If you turn that back toward a human—show the sole of your foot in Middle Eastern countries, in Thailand, and in a few other places—it’s a terrible insult. People get into huge fights when they think someone has purposely shown the bottom of their foot, barefoot or in shoes. If you cross [your] legs and let the sole of your shoe face someone, that can be a terrible, terrible insult. People have been killed for that.

That’s something that travelers should know!
Make sure you keep your feet on the ground in Thailand.

Iraq was involved in another highly publicized shoe condemnation.
Remember when Saddam Hussein’s statue was toppled? Folks that really hated Saddam beat on the statue with their sandals to symbolically stomp Saddam.

Is that an ancient custom?
When you look back into ancient Egypt, [people] sometimes drew a pictograph of their enemy on the bottom of their sandals and walked on them symbolically.

Is there any animal behavior that’s similar?
Yes. Chimpanzees, for example, will slap the ground with their hands in a pronated position, like the position for a floor push-up, turned down to the ground. That gets into that kind of stomping mode.

Lots of people do a variation of a stomp.
Yes, like when [Soviet Premier Nikita] Khrushchev pounded on a table with his shoe. Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, is what I’d call a “table-pounder.” When he gets excited, he pounds on a table with the flat of his palm held down. It’s a symbolic stomp.

Any parent knows that kids like to stomp off to their room when they’re mad.
The kid is stomping on you symbolically.

Are there other gestures of anger that people might not be aware of?
Quite a few. There’s one called the “hand ring.” In the U.S., it’s the A-OK gesture, where you oppose the tactile pad of the thumb and forefinger and make a little circle and extend other fingers, a little bit like making [an] A-OK sign. But in other parts of the world—like Germany and Tunisia, Greece, Turkey, the Middle East, parts of South America—that same gesture, if turned so the palm is facing upward and parallel to the ceiling and moved up and down a bit, it’s a sexual insult much like giving the finger.

Where did that come from?
It goes back to ancient Greece. It appears in certain vase paintings. It symbolizes a body orifice, male or female. And then it spread. Who knows why? And once [these gestures] get going, they kind of persist.

Any other anger sign people might not recognize?
My favorite is called the “double moutza.” It’s a Greek word for a palm thrust. Again, it’s the position of your hands when you do a push-up. But [in this case you] extend your forearm and upper arm straight ahead toward the person you’re giving an insult to. Palms are open, and arms are fully extended, like you’re going to push the person back. You and I might use it if we want to symbolically push something back. It’s an insult only in Greece.

What does it mean?
The meaning of even one moutza is “Go to hell.” The double moutza, with both hands out, means “Go to hell twice.”

George Bush is lucky he didn’t get a double moutza.
He probably got a lot of them. We just didn’t see them.

- Marc Silver