For the next year we will hear of the B.C. trial of Robert “Willy” Pickton, accused of a horrific string of serial killings of women, many of them drug addicted sex trade workers. We do not yet know whether Mr. Pickton will be found guilty of these crimes, but it does appear likely that a serial killer or killers were responsible for many, if not all, of these deaths.

A serial killer is a person, almost always male, who kills at least three victims sequentially. For the past two decades criminologists and law enforcement personnel have tried to develop a better understanding of the serial killer, largely by creating typologies after poring over data from hundreds of files. The best known typologies of the serial killer focus on whether or not he is “organized”, having carefully planned each killing, whether he is a “visionary killer”, suffering a break from reality, a “mission killer”, determined to eradicate a particular group of “deserving” individuals, or a “hedonistic killer”, murdering for either sexual satisfaction, or the excitement of killing itself.

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One of the most pleasant consequences of a February vacation on Lanai is the opportunity to read a few interesting books. The opportunity to swim in the wild with spinner dolphins was another pleasant consequence (albeit unexpected), as was good food, a sandy beach, and lots of sunshine (not typically evident in coastal British Columbia in February).

George Monbiot’s “Heat”, Thomas Homer-Dixon’s “The Upside of Down”, and Joel Bakan’s “The Corporation” are all worth the effort, generally compelling analyses of the state of our culture early in this new millenium. “The Upside of Down” tells us of five “tectonic stresses” that are bubbling beneath our global society: population stresses arising from differences in growth between rich and poor countries, looming energy shortages, environmental damage, dramatic climate change, and economic stress, created by the increasing gulf between rich and poor, particularly within the developing world. Homer-Dixon marshalls the evidence in support of each of these stresses, and points to the need for what he terms a “prospective” mind. The danger ahead lies with extremists, and with resorting to fundamentalist beliefs rather than science. Indeed, much of the denial of these stresses comes not from the men and women who practice science, but from ideologues, who want to believe either in some future technological fix, or in some sort of system of religious deliverance.

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