I’m grateful that the Iowa Independent bloggers listen to our local Rush Limbaugh clones so I don’t have to. If anything newsworthy comes out of some right-wing radio show, I can read about it online.  

I learned recently that no matter how crazy Congressman Steve King seems, there are some conservatives who think he should be further outside the mainstream.

After the jump I have a few thoughts on the spat between King and wingnut Bill Salier, best known for almost beating establishment favorite Greg Ganske in the 2002 Republican Senate primary.

Iowa Workforce Development is fining Henry’s Turkey Service $900,000 for labor law violations, the Des Moines Register reported on May 29. The fine stems from 9,000 counts of making improper deductions from paychecks, not paying the minimum wage, and not providing pay stubs to the mentally disabled workers who lived in a decrepit bunkhouse in Atalissa. (The violations affected at least 30 workers during every pay period in 2007 and 2008.)

Since various agencies are conducting other investigations into the company’s treatment of its workers, I expect this fine will be the first of many levied against Henry’s Turkey Service. However, an attorney for the parent company of Henry’s Turkey Service told the Des Moines Register that the company will challenge Iowa Workforce Development’s proposal. It will be some time before any fines are paid.

Click here for the archive of Des Moines Register reports on this appalling story.

Senator John Ensign of Nevada is coming to northwest Iowa today for stops at Trans Ova Genetics in Sioux Center and the famous ice cream shop in Le Mars before he delivers a speech in Sioux City.

The American Future Fund invited Ensign as part of a lecture series, and American Future Fund spokesman Tim Albrecht spoke to Radio Iowa about him:

Albrecht describes the 51-year-old Ensign as a “strong” conservative.

“I think that Senator Ensign will be able to introduce himself to a group of active conservatives who are thirsty for a new voice, a new person, to really pick up the banner and carry it on their behalf,” Albrecht says.

Are conservatives “thirsty for a new voice,” as in someone who hasn’t already run for president? The Republican Party has a history of nominating presidential candidates on their second or third try: Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, John McCain.

Ensign looks like a fairly generic Republican to me. He would need to do something to distinguish himself in the next few years to avoid becoming the Sam Brownback or Tommy Thompson of 2012.

UPDATE: Ensign gave Iowa Politics an interview:

“I’m not running for president,” said Ensign, who’s chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “What I’m doing is raising my profile. I believe we need new voices and fresh voices in the Republican Party who can articulate a message of our core Republican principles.”

More thoughts on likely Republican presidential candidates are after the jump.

Iowa Republicans are bashing Governor Chet Culver for appointing Kate Gronstal to the I-JOBS board, which will decide how to spend $118.5 million of the $830 million in I-JOBS money. Kate Gronstal is the daughter of Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal.

Iowa GOP chairman Matt Strawn slammed what he called “political nepotism”:

“I’m sure there are thousands of qualified engineers in this state that don’t raise the red flag that someone who is an immediate family member of a legislator in charge of ramming this through the Senate,” Strawn said.

Since Culver “declined to respond” to Strawn’s allegation, I want to lay out the case for putting Kate Gronstal on this board.

1. She is qualified for the position as a professionally trained structural engineer. It’s not as if the governor put a well-connected person with no relevant experience on the board.

2. By all accounts she is smart and highly capable. People born into political families have certain doors opened for them. I’m sure Marcus Branstad had a leg up on the competition when he was starting his career in Iowa Republican circles. Who cares as long as he is good at what he does?

3. Kate Gronstal’s presence on the board will subject its award process to a higher level of scrutiny. That’s good.

I supported the large infrastructure bonding package because Iowa’s debt load is not that high, interest rates are relatively low, and public works projects can improve the quality of life in the long term while creating jobs in the short term.

However, it is critically important that the I-JOBS money be spent wisely to benefit whole communities, not just a few wealthy developers.

Iowa Republicans never liked Culver’s bonding plan, and they’ll be watching for any mistakes that bolster their misleading talking points. With Kate Gronstal on the I-JOBS board, Republicans will use any unworthy project approved to highlight alleged Democratic nepotism and mismanagement.

I-JOBS has the potential to make Iowa a better place to live. Governor Culver has appointed a qualified board to administer the program. All the board members, and especially Kate Gronstal, have strong incentives to demonstrate that they can handle this responsibility.

After the jump I’ve posted the governor’s press release containing bios for all members of the I-JOBS Board and the Accountability And Transparency Board, which will “make sure Iowa meets or exceeds the accountability and transparency requirements of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” (also known as the federal economic stimulus bill).

An assailant shot and killed Dr. George Tiller at a church in Wichita, Kansas this morning. Tiller has long been demonized by the anti-choice movement because he performs late-term abortions. He was shot in 1993 and has faced numerous threats, and his clinic has been bombed and vandalized. The Wichita Eagle has background here and is updating the story. (Note: police arrested a 51-year-old male suspect about three hours after the shooting.)

Daily Kos user wiscmass discusses other violent attacks against abortion providers here. As wiscmass notes, every murder or assault is a deterrent to medical professionals considering whether to provide abortion services. By intimidating doctors, anti-choice activists can restrict access to abortion where legal and political methods have failed. I would add that even non-violent methods of intimidation can be effective. For instance, the Sioux City medical community has made clear hospital privileges will be denied to any local doctor who performs abortions at Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa’s clinic there.

Tiller was not only serving women in Kansas. Many states, including Iowa, lack any clinic where women with a compelling medical reason can get a late-term abortion. (Contrary to propaganda you may have heard, healthy women with healthy pregnancies can’t just walk into Tiller’s clinic and get an abortion in the third trimester.) I have no idea where these women will go now.

Incidentally, Tiller’s donations to Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius and her political action committee prompted 31 Senate Republicans to vote against confirming Sebelius as Health and Human Services secretary in April.

Cecile Richards, leader of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, told a story about Sebelius during a recent speech at Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa’s 75th anniversary celebration. Richards recalled a noisy group of protesters with graphic signs outside a Planned Parenthood event in Kansas. Everyone who attended the event, including then-Governor Sebelius, had to walk through the group of protesters. During her speech that night, Sebelius said she was glad everyone had to face those protesters, because it gave them a sense of what women in Kansas go through every day just trying to access reproductive health care.

Unfortunately, Tiller’s murder reminds us that standing up for reproductive rights in this country sometimes means putting your life in danger. I echo wiscmass in urging pro-choice Americans to support the organizations that are on the front lines in this battle.

Several Bleeding Heartland readers living in different Iowa counties have received robocalls in the past few days featuring Congressman Steve “10 Worst” King. Like the calls King recorded in early April, these calls are paid for by the National Organization for Marriage.

I have not heard the call, but from what others have told me, it sounds like this fake survey is designed to raise money, identify and mobilize supporters. (In contrast, a “push-poll” usually seeks to spread information that would change people’s minds about an issue or candidate.) The details are after the jump.

If all you knew about 2nd Circuit U.S. Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor came from conservative commentators, you would think Barack Obama had nominated a far-left reverse racist for the Supreme Court. A typically unhinged assessment by Iowa’s own Ted Sporer, chairman of the Polk County Republican Party, is titled “The Supreme Court pick: Justice denied, racism and sexism exalted.” Like most conservatives who are freaking out, Sporer is reacting to one quotation from a speech Sotomayor gave in 2001:

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

Conservative commentator Rod Dreher read the whole speech and concluded on Wednesday, “seeing her controversial comment in its larger context makes it look a lot less provocative and troubling.” However, the right-wing noise machine continues to sound the alarm about Sotomayor’s alleged radical, racist agenda.

You won’t be surprised to learn that people who have examined her judicial record (as opposed to one sentence from one speech) have reached substantially different conclusions. Some reality-based links are after the jump.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack took a step toward undoing bad Bush administration policy on Thursday:

No logging or road project on tens of millions of forested acres will proceed without personal approval by the Agriculture Department’s secretary for at least a year while the Obama administration decides how to handle a controversial Clinton-era roadless rule, officials said today.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is signing a directive giving himself sole power to make decisions for one year on building roads and harvesting timber on nearly all of the areas covered by the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. The directive can be renewed for an additional year, the department said. It covers roadless areas in Alaska but will not apply to those in Idaho, which wrote its own roadless area plan.

“This interim directive will provide consistency and clarity that will help protect our national forests until a long-term roadless policy reflecting President Obama’s commitment is developed,” Vilsack said in a statement.

Environmental-minded Democrats and non-profit organizations welcomed the news. The Washington Post and New York Times have more detail on what Vilsack’s directive means.

Many people don’t realize that the U.S. Forest Service is under the USDA’s jurisdiction. (This brief history explains that the original purpose of the service was “to provide quality water and timber for the Nation’s benefit.”) Vilsack had little prior experience in this area, because Iowa is not one of the 44 states containing a national forest and has has only a few state forests. (Click here for more information about where the 142 U.S. national forests are located.)

Although Vilsack’s latest directive will not affect Iowa directly, Iowans should be proud of our former governor’s step toward protecting some of our country’s most pristine natural areas.

By the way, the Iowa Democratic Party is honoring Secretary Vilsack, former First Lady Christie Vilsack and Lieutenant Governor Sally Pederson at its Hall of Fame Awards Ceremony on June 27. Click here to reserve tickets. I’m looking forward to the event.

I got a double-dose of Dr. Howard Dean in Des Moines yesterday at a health care reform event and a reception to honor Iowa House Speaker Pat Murphy and Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal. (I’ll write up the health care forum later today.)

The reception was organized by One Iowa, the leading LGBT advocacy group in the state. Dean spoke about his experience as governor of Vermont after signing a bill granting legal recognition to same-sex couples (civil unions) in April 2000. He remarked that supporting civil unions has now become the “compromise position” on the issue, but it wasn’t that way nine years ago. He wore a bullet-proof vest for a time after signing the bill and didn’t visit certain conservative areas of the state much during that year’s re-election campaign. Dean was barely re-elected in 2000 with 50.5 percent of the vote after winning his four previous gubernatorial elections easily.

Think about that. Less than a decade ago in a relatively progressive state, the governor was wearing a bullet-proof vest after standing up for civil unions. I don’t mean to downplay the political courage shown by Iowa leaders who have respected and praised the Iowa Supreme Court’s ruling, because I know marriage equality is still a controversial and emotional issue. But it’s striking how much more accepting people are of legal recognition for committed gay and lesbian couples.

In an interview with Radio Iowa’s O.Kay Henderson yesterday, Dean said of marriage equality,

“This has just become a non-issue in states where there’s a lot of neighborliness,” Dean said. “Because even if people don’t think, for religious reasons, that gay people ought to be able to get married, they’re also respectful of their neighbors who may have a gay person in their family.”

Radio Iowa’s headline on this story is “Dean predicts gay marriage will be a ‘non-issue’ in 2010.” That makes him seem much more complacent than he sounded to me at the One Iowa reception. Dean predicted that marriage equality will gain wide acceptance, but he reminded the audience of that old political saying, “Never forget who your friends are.” He urged them to support the Democrats who have blocked a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in the state legislature, warning that if these leaders lose in the next election, “it sets back the movement.”  

In the context of not forgetting your friends, Dean mentioned that his presidential campaign could never have gotten off the ground without the help of the LGBT community. He estimated that in the early months, about 75 percent of the money his campaign raised came from LGBT donors who remembered that he stood with them on civil unions. That early money helped him hire a few staffers and open a few offices, laying the ground for his surge in support during the summer of 2003.

Speaking more broadly, Dean gave credit to all gays and lesbians over the years who have “stood up and said who you are,” because it becomes much harder to say and think bad things about a group when you know the group includes your friends and neighbors. (Dean made a similar point in his Radio Iowa interview.)

In their remarks to the One Iowa reception, Gronstal and Murphy both gave credit to the “six brave couples” who put their names on the line in filing the Varnum v Brien lawsuit against Iowa’s Defense of Marriage Act. Gronstal added that in holding the line against efforts to overturn the Supreme Court ruling, he and Murphy “didn’t do this for the LGBT community. We did it for everyone.”

UPDATE: Iowa Independent has more on last night’s event.

SECOND UPDATE: In the comments at MyDD, Texas Dem notes that Dean’s re-election in 2000 was less close than it seems, because his Republican rival only got about 38 percent, with a Progressive candidate winning the remaining 9.5 percent. Still, that was a much narrower margin than Dean’s other gubernatorial election victories.  

Governor Chet Culver signed more than two dozen bills on May 26, the last day he was able to take action on legislation approved during the 2009 session. Two of the bills made up the last piece of the I-JOBS program, four more are aimed at helping veterans and Iowans on active duty, and the rest cover a wide range of issues.

Some good news for water quality was buried in the long list of bills and veto messages signed on Tuesday. For the details, follow me after the jump.

The customer is always right.

As Ben Smith reported at Politico last week, several large labor unions are questioning investment fund managers about their stance on the Employee Free Choice Act:

“Has your company made any public statements in support or opposition to EFCA?” asks one of nine pointed questions in a polite, detailed four-page questionnaire.

“If ‘Yes,’ please explain.”

The detailed questionnaire has three parts. The first asks about fund managers’ public positions, lobbying and political contributions. The second asks managers to “disclose any relationships during the past five years between your company and any organization(s) opposing the passage” of EFCA. The form lists 14 organizations, from anti-EFCA organizations like the Workforce Fairness Institute to trade groups that oppose it, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Roundtable.

Here’s a pdf file of the questionnaire. More on the whining after the jump.

Conservative blogger Craig Robinson argued last week that “Iowa Republicans Have Plenty of Opportunity in the State Senate” in 2010. The GOP has almost nowhere to go but up. Republicans currently hold 18 of the 50 seats in the Iowa Senate, fewer than at any previous time in this state’s history. After making gains in the last four general elections, Democrats now hold 19 of the 25 Iowa Senate seats that will be on the ballot in 2010. Also, several Democratic incumbents are in their first term, having won their seats during the wave election of 2006.

To win back the upper chamber, Republicans would need a net gain of seven seats in 2010, and Robinson lists the seven districts where he sees the best chances for the GOP.

I generally agree with John Deeth’s view that only a few Senate districts are strong pickup opportunities for Republicans next year. Winning back the upper chamber will take the GOP at least two cycles, with redistricting likely to create who knows how many open or winnable seats in 2012.

After the jump I’ll examine the seven Iowa Senate districts Robinson views as worthwhile targets as well as one Republican-held district that Democrats should be able to pick up. Here is a map (pdf file) of the current Iowa Senate districts.

I was so sorry to hear today’s news out of California. While I have no doubt that a future referendum will reverse Prop 8, that process will take years and resources that could have been spent organizing in other states.

Couples left in legal limbo should be aware that the state of Iowa recognizes the marriages of same-sex couples who tied the knot in California last year. Moving halfway across the country clearly won’t be an option for everyone, but Iowa has a low cost of living and a good quality of life (more affordable housing, relatively low rates of crime and unemployment, short commutes, and decent public schools in many communities).

Of course, couples from California or anywhere else can still come to Iowa to get married.

Since the Iowa Supreme Court’s Varnum v Brien ruling went into effect on April 27, hundreds of same-sex couples have been married here. More than half of Iowa’s 99 counties have issued at least one marriage license to a same-sex couple. Despite an extensive petition drive to pressure county recorders, no county recorder has refused to issue a marriage license to a couple seeking one.

In my opinion, a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court ruling will not get anywhere. I explain why after the jump.

The big news of the day is that President Barack Obama nominated U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. If confirmed, she would be the third woman to serve on the high court and the first Hispanic justice of either gender.

Sotomayor reportedly sealed the deal during her interview with the president last Thursday.

Deoliver47 has more background and video clips in this post.

Senate Republicans will try to drag out the confirmation process, but there will be no long-term vacancy on the high court. Justice David Souter has made clear that he will retire once his replacement is confirmed.

I don’t know a lot about Sotomayor, but I look forward to learning more. She has the qualities I wanted to see in a Supreme Court nominee, even if she is not as progressive as I would like. Tom Goldstein of the SCOTUS blog previewed arguments for and against her nomination. Excerpt:

Objectively, her qualifications are overwhelming from the perspective of ordinary Americans.  She has been a prosecutor, private litigator, trial judge, and appellate judge.  No one currently on the Court has that complete package of experience.

On the other hand, this criminal defense attorney who has argued cases before her court isn’t too impressed.

On principle, I am glad that a hit piece on Sotomayor filled with anonymous quotes did not derail her nomination. More on that hit piece is here.

Before I open the floor for comments, here’s some Supreme Court-related humor from The Onion.

What do you think of Obama’s choice?

UPDATE: Greg Sargent points out that “Seven Republicans currently in the Senate voted for the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor in 1998 as U.S. Circuit Court judge[…].” That’s not counting Arlen Specter, who also voted to confirm her in 1998 but is no longer a Republican.

SECOND UPDATE: Sports fans may remember that as a U.S. district court judge, Sotomayor ended the baseball strike in 1995.

THIRD UPDATE: Senator Chuck Grassley released this statement:

“A lifetime appointment requires a thorough vetting, and I expect Judge Sotomayor to receive fair and deliberative consideration.  The United States Senate has a responsibility to carefully review nominees to the Supreme Court.   The Judiciary Committee should take time to ensure that the nominee will be true to the Constitution and apply the law, not personal politics, feelings or preferences.  We need to ask tough questions to learn how this individual views the role of a Supreme Court justice.  The last 25 years of Senate review of nominees has been entirely different than the first 200 years, and today the Senate can’t just be a rubber stamp for President Obama’s nominees.”

Grassley is incorrect to imply that the Senate has been a rubber stamp of Supreme Court nominees for most of this country’s history. During the 19th century, the Senate rejected approximately one fourth of the presidential nominees for this office.

Here’s a list of failed nominations to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Des Moines Register profiled Dave Murphy of Food Democracy Now in Monday’s edition. The article mentioned the incredible success of the petition signed by more than 94,000 Americans. Two of the “sustainable dozen” candidates whom Food Democracy Now recommended for U.S. Department of Agriculture posts now work for the department. Drake Law Professor Neil Hamilton, also on the sustainable dozen list, is an “informal adviser” to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.

You should read the whole Des Moines Register article. The most important passage is about how Murphy makes the case for changing agriculture policies:

[Murphy] pointed to a survey from the Organic Trade Association that showed that the U.S. sales of organic food grew nearly 16 percent between 2007 and 2008 to reach $22.9 billion. Organic foods now account for about 3.5 percent of all U.S. food sales.

For Murphy, sustainable farming is about more than the food.

He sees it as returning to a model of production that is better for the environment and one in which farmers can start without taking on deep debt to finance heavy equipment.

He said the agricultural policies today are stacked against farmers of small- to mid-sized farms in favor of larger operations. […]

Murphy stressed that he isn’t against large farm operations. He said sustainable practices can help farms of all sizes.

But Murphy does believe that the playing field ought to be leveled, for the benefit not just for smaller farms but for rural areas in general.

“That’s the best way to improve rural economies,” he said. “The more farmers there are on the land, the better it is for rural economies.”

Health and environmental concerns sparked my interest in buying local food produced sustainably, but Murphy is wise to connect the dots between agriculture policies and the economic future of rural areas. For more along those lines, read the feature on Murphy and Food Democracy Now from the Washington Post in March.

Speaking of Iowans who are incredibly committed to helping small and medium-sized farms thrive, Woodbury County’s rural economic development director Rob Marqusee has pledged to “eat only food grown within 100 miles of the Woodbury County Courthouse for the entire month of June 09 (and no meat will be allowed in the diet).” Keep an eye on Marqusee’s Woodbury Organics site next month, because he’ll be blogging about his food challenge.

Those interested in Murphy’s work should go read more on the Food Democracy Now site. Click here for past Bleeding Heartland posts that referenced Food Democracy Now’s work. Jill Richardson wrote more here about Murphy’s activist roots and the role he played during the Iowa caucus campaign.

If organic farmer Francis Thicke decides to run for Iowa secretary of agriculture in 2010, expanding local food networks will be a major theme of his campaign.

I got so busy this month that the event calendars fell by the wayside. After the jump I’ve posted details about lots of things going on this week and next.

As always, please post a comment or send an e-mail (desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com) if you know of something I’ve left out.

Congratulations to all the recent college graduates in the Bleeding Heartland community. I hope you’ve grown and learned as much as I did in college, and I hope you don’t stop growing and learning once you’re out of school.

Reading this Des Moines Register collection of excerpts from commencement addresses, I realized that I don’t remember a single thing the speaker said during my own graduation ceremony. While searching for something else, I came across John Lithgow’s speech to the 2005 graduating class at Harvard. I highly recommend it.

Lithgow includes everything you want in a speech like this: humor (but not too much), social commentary (but not too much), and personal anecdotes that reflect his advice to the graduates (“be creative, be useful, be practical, and be generous”).

Instead of telling the audience how he achieved fame and success as an actor, Lithgow explained how he used his acting career to launch a “concurrent second career” as a children’s entertainer with a “secret agenda” to instill a love for the Arts in young people. Do click through–it’s a good read.

Share your own words of wisdom for new graduates in this thread.

The Des Moines Register’s Clark Kauffman wrote a must-read piece for today’s paper about a bunkhouse for mentally disabled men at the Johnson & Johnson Egg Farm near Goldthwaite, Texas. The bunkhouse is

the last run by the same Texas family who controlled Henry’s Turkey Service and the Atalissa, Ia., bunkhouse from which dozens of mentally retarded turkey plant workers were evacuated by the fire marshal in February.

Click here for the full archive of Des Moines Register stories about Henry’s Turkey Service and its facility in Iowa. The exploitation of workers there over many years is the subject of numerous current investigations. The horrific story had political fallout as well. Iowa Senate Republicans rejected Gene Gessow’s nomination to head the Department of Human Services, saying that as acting head of the department, Gessow “failed to be forthright about the Atalissa bunkhouse situation during important legislative oversight committee hearings.”

I’ve highlighted a few parts of Kauffman’s latest report after the jump, but I encourage you to click over and read the whole piece. Then ask yourself why any companies are allowed to pay the mentally disabled less than minimum wage. If a person is competent to do work a corporation needs done, that person deserves the same pay a person with no disabilities would receive.

Richard Doak wrote a great piece in last Sunday’s Des Moines Register urging readers to “plant the seeds of a more eco-thoughtful Iowa.” Seeding native plants along roadsides has helped the state Department of Transportation save money and labor while user fewer chemicals.

Highway officials cite a long list of other benefits, such as controlling blowing snow, improving air quality, reducing erosion, filtering pollutants and providing wildlife habitat. They’re even said to improve safety by reducing the effects of highway hypnosis, delineating upcoming curves and screening headlight glare.

Doak wants to see much more native landscaping in Iowa:

To set the example, let’s have every school, every courthouse, every park, every hospital, every library set aside at least a patch of space for wild indigo, prairie sage, golden Alexanders, blackeyed Susan, pale-purple coneflower, butterfly milkweed, prairie larkspur, shooting star, compass plant, partridge pea, spiderwort, ironweed, blazing star, smooth blue aster or any of hundreds of other flowering plants that were native to the tallgrass prairie. […]

It’s estimated that up to one-third of residential water use goes to lawn watering, and lawn mowing uses 800 million gallons of gasoline per year, including 17 million gallons spilled while refueling. Some 5 percent of air pollution is attributed to lawn mowers.

Native plants require no fertilizer or herbicide, no watering and only enough mowing to mimic the effects of the occasional wildfires that kept the prairie clean of trees.

Interest in reducing pollution and conserving water and energy should be reason enough to switch to native landscaping.

About ten years ago, our family stopped trying to grow a grassy lawn in our shady yard. After the jump I’ve listed some of the benefits of going native.

I got my first mosquito bite of the year yesterday, so I knew it was time to get out the bug spray and post a new version of this diary.

Unfortunately, many public health authorities still recommend using insect repellents containing DEET. Having researched this issue a few years ago after my older son was born, I would not recommend DEET for anyone, especially children or adults living in a household with children.

The Environmental Protection Agency does not permit DEET products to be labeled “child safe” and requires labels directing parents not to allow children to handle the product. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Environmental Protection Agency both recommend precautions when applying DEET to children, such as washing skin treated with DEET as well as treated clothing when children return inside. Few families find it practical to bathe their children and wash their clothing every time they come in from outside during the summer.

Kids Health for Parents, a web site published by the Nemours Foundation, recommends that repellents containing DEET be used “sparingly” on children between the ages of 2 and 12 and not put on their faces or hands, because children so frequently put their hands in their mouths.

The Lyme Disease Foundation has this advice for keeping ticks away: “On skin, use a repellent containing DEET. But don’t overdo it. Too much bug spray can cause breathing difficulty, especially in children.”

In any event, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control has found that “repellents containing the ingredient picaridin or the oil of lemon eucalyptus can protect people against mosquitoes as well as repellents containing the chemical DEET.”

Grist reviewed several DEET-free alternatives last summer. The Daily Green listed a few more DEET-free insect repellents here.

I’ve tried several of the products mentioned in those pieces. We mostly use Buzz Away, but other DEET-free brands seem to work well too. The main difference between them and DEET is that you have to reapply the natural repellents more frequently, about every one to two hours. Usually that’s no problem for me, because I only need it when I walk the dog or take the kids to the park for an hour or two.

Share your tips for beating the mosquitoes in this thread.

UPDATE: I got an e-mail from an avid gardener who swears by generic-brand listerine in a spray bottle. Reapply every hour or two, she says.

SECOND UPDATE: At Mother Talkers, Jenniferfree2bme posted a great tip about home-made spray using catnip oil.