Athens Burger War Hits New York Times

I can’t fathom what a slow day it must have been in the newsroom of the New York Times to make Rep. Betty Brown’s bill relating to Athens being the home of the hamburger and the controversy it has caused an important story.

Evidently, there were not enough winter storms or missing kids in the news cycle:

So when a Texas lawmaker introduced a bill recently to codify the claim that a town she represents, Athens, was the original home of the hamburger, Mr. Lassen bit. Hard.

“Look, this is not about business,” he said on Tuesday, standing over the cast-iron oven where the burgers are placed between blue-hot flames. “We’re not going to make any more or less money. We’ll still serve hamburgers. But it is our family. It’s history. And we know we’re right.”

This is probably the dumbest thing two cities could fight about. The New Englanders actually talk though, as though they might take (gasp!) legal action:

After news of the bill appeared in The New Haven Register last weekend, a bit of food pandemonium hit. Officials in Connecticut said that they would do whatever it took to defend Louis’ honor and claim to the title, telling the Texans to “get over it.”

“Of course, when I introduced it I had no idea it would be so controversial,” Ms. Brown said in a telephone interview. “We certainly weren’t trying to wrest away the title from somebody else. People around Athens have taken for granted for a long time that a man there invented the hamburger.”

Doing whatever it takes? Does this mean litigation, or sending the Connecticut National Guard down to the capitol to rough up Betty Brown and hand Governor Perry a declaration of hostilities? Give me a break. I don’t think the world will end if two cities have similar titles.

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