Posted 8:18 PM by Floyd

Journalistic bias can take many forms. One of the more obnoxious is puff pieces that present lunatics in a favorable light:

Like many Californians, Chris Biffle is sick about the looming cuts to education and tired of bickering Sacramento power brokers. And he's ready to fight.

And walk. And walk.

Along with a tiny cadre of students, Biffle, chairman of a community college philosophy department, set out June 21 on a walk to the state Capitol from San Bernardino City Hall -- his own mission of educational reform.

...

He's armed only with a set of gloomy statistics, a free reading game for young students, and a bunch of dirty sweat socks. If legislators still haven't adopted a budget before July 22, when he arrives in Sacramento, he plans to leave a pair of smelly socks on the Capitol steps for every day the state has remained without a budget since July 1, the constitutional deadline.

``It's the Big Stinker Award,'' he said.

To be followed by the Huge Stinker award, which will consist of his used underwear. And the Poopy Stinker award -- his grandchild's used diapers.

Biffle works for the state, which is about to reduce his funding. Tough luck, but it happens all the time. Here's more of Biffle's mewling:

Sadly, Biffle said, at least 60 percent of California elementary, middle and high-school students are one grade behind in reading. In a national fourth-grade reading test, only 28 percent were deemed proficient in reading. In California, the figure was 18 percent. The pending budget cuts will make ``a serious problem catastrophic,'' he said.

A reporter would have asked Biffle why California schools that do such a poor job teaching should be showered with unlimited amounts of funding. Too bad the Mercury News employee who interviewed Biffle was not a reporter, but a fawning scribe.