A bean-pot was at the heart of a violent conflict on the Texas coast this week. As this is the second such episode in the past six months, we hope we are not seeing the outlines of a new trend.

The most recent legume fracas took place in Corpus.

Just after Midnight Saturday, police responded to a stabbing. Once there, the victim's girlfriend told police that some time back she had loaned a bean-pot to a neighbor, and that she had just seen that neighbor getting out of her car.

She approached her and asked for the return of the bean-pot. Instead of making up some lame excuse, the woman told her what might have been the truth: that the pot was dirty and had maggots in it.

Standing tall by his woman, the soon-to-be stabbing victim said he didn't give a crap -- he wanted that bean-pot back, toot suite. Maggots or not, that other lady had held it for way too long.

And at that point, a man the victim described as a sixtysomething Hispanic man of roughly average height and weight emerged from the bean-pot borrower's car and started stabbing him. The victim ran off and the guy drove away and is still being sought by the Corpus police. The victim was treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

Which brings us to bean-brawl number two. This one took place closer to home in the Brazoria County town of Rosharon.

One Saturday morning this February, Larry Williams, 62, was minding his own business, cooking a pot of beans in the kitchen he shares with his mother and Kenneth Williams, his brother.

Kenneth came barging in and told Larry he was doing it all wrong. Which is pretty damned irritating, but Kenneth kept pressing the issue. He, said that he, Kenneth Williams, would not be eating that slop his brother called a pot of beans.

And after that it was on: soon the brothers were discussing other family matters, and then Larry Williams, who had been brandishing a cooking knife all along, attacked his brother's face. Before he was done he had nearly severed Kenneth's ear.

Kenneth's ear has since been firmly reattached. As for Larry Williams, he is out on $50,000 bond. His trial is next month, and if convicted of the charge he faces -- felony aggravated assault with a deadly weapon -- he could get 20 years in prison.