"A pretty harrowing experience." That's how a Pakistani member of the International Olympic Committee has characterized travel to the U.S., in the course of explaining why he voted against Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Games.

In numerous posts to the blog, I've written about the difficulties that foreigners face in planning a visit to this country. The difficulties in obtaining visas, the requirement to make a "request" to enter the country several days before departure, the unfriendly reception at the customs counters, the need to supply fingerprints and other means of identification, a dozen other obstacles, are discouraging enormous numbers of would-be tourists from coming here. And now, in the proposed Travel Promotion Act awaiting a vote in the House of Representatives, foreign tourists from countries enjoying visa waivers will be made to pay $10 per person to help finance a program for advertising the pleasures of America!

Obviously, the entire process of allowing foreign tourism to our country requires re-thinking by the Administration, and a solution other than the wholly-un-persuasive "more advertising" explanation that underlies the Travel Promotion Act.

Meanwhile, the recent vote to hold the 2016 summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro has prompted a couple of comments that you might find interesting.

"Don't they realize that July/August is the 'winter' in Rio?" That's actually a pretty perceptive statement. Temperatures in that part of Brazil can hover around 60 degrees during Rio's winter. While lower temperatures may actually be favorable for long marathon footraces, they don't seem conducive to a great many other "summer" sports. Will most athletes be competing in heavy slacks and sweaters?

More troubling was the publication last week in The New Yorker of a lengthy article by veteran war reporter Jon Lee Anderson (audio slideshow for the story is available here) about the uncontrolled crime and violence in vast slum areas of Rio on the part of drug gangs that have defeated every effort by local police to control or weaken them. Will Brazil import its army into the favelas (slum areas) at the time of the Games? Or will some effort be made to provide decent public housing -- and a reduction in crime -- in areas of Rio where hopelessness prevails.