By now, it is all over the news, a man beheaded his wife of 8 years. She had a restraining order for their home, he turned himself in. That the man is a Muslim and started a network to improve the image of Muslims is what gives it the "man bites dog" news cycle stickiness. But there is a global boom in this most brute force of dehumanizing crimes. Consider that in the 1980′s and 1990′s right wing death squads used beheading against villages, and many of the veterans of those squads are now involved in drug wars in Latin America. In Mexico drug murders have climbed from 1080 in 2001 to over 5000 last year.

The "zetas" are blamed for starting the tactic, which has now spiraled into mass beheadings, and then leaving the bodies. YouTube videos have been posted of the beheadings from Mexico. Turf battles are often blamed, over the profitable entry routes into the United States.

During the Second World War, the Japanese occupying much of China beheaded civilians – men, women, children – among other means of slaughter. But the present boom is not connected with the kind of broad atrocities being seen in places like the Congo. Instead, it is expressly part of a more individual reign of terror and execution.

Before we become too superior, realize that beheading is easy to find in pop culture. Beheading wives is not limited to any religion. Earlier this year a Chinese graduate student beheaded a fellow student. Barbarity is not limited to one place.

However, Saudi Arabia is notorious for using beheading as a method of legal execution, with an elaborate series of preparations, currently the kingdom executes about 2 a week. The executed are disproportionately poor, because the victim’s family can "forgive" – on the payment of "blood money." Most wealthier Saudis pay, while foreigners and poor Saudis cannot.

What is behind this epidemic? It isn’t the rise of Islamic terrorism, because beheadings were seen with more frequency starting before Iraq. Instead, there seems to be a rising level of ferocity, both in personal and state conflicts. Individuals, governments, crime gangs, films – as well as terrorists – have hit upon this as a way of sending the real or virtual message of primal rage and territoriality. This is not beheading as a clean form of killing, by guillotine or expert, but instead, an image of brutality.

Money also plays a powerful part: in the crime killings, in Saudi executions, in kidnappings, ransom is part of the equation. Beheading, like torture, is done to send a message to the living. This means that 2009 is likely poised to top 2008 as a landmark of this particular kind of savagery.