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Today, Web Monitor asks if we are seeing the end of the rebellious pop star, why we should save slums instead of knock them down and what on earth the cupcake is doing popping up all over the Middle East.

• what ever happened to pop rebellion. To many of Pete Doherty and Amy Winehouse might look like a latter day Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, but to Dee such excessive behaviour is "commonplace and accepted."
Green Day songs are punk without the politics. But Dee is most perturbed by Lily Allen, calling her a government lackey because she is supporting an official campaign to crack down on music piracy:

"By backing Lord Mandelson's 'get tough' line, she has shown that, like her father, Keith, she's a pampered luvvie in chav's clothing. When it comes to getting paid, all her pretence of rebellion - the farting around, writing rude songs about sex - goes out of the French windows alongside her latest unsatisfactory, inconsiderate boyfriend."

• It is accepted wisdom that shanty towns, from Mumbai to Rio de Janeiro, are one of most horrendous manifestations of man's urbanisation. But futurologist Stewart Brand begs to differ. governments to save slums as they are hubs of creativity, offer a rural-to-urban transition and are good for the environment, not to mention for gender equality:

"Cities draw people away from subsistence farming, which is ecologically devastating, and they defuse the population bomb. In the villages, women spend their time doing agricultural stuff, for no pay, or having lots and lots of kids. When women move to town, it's better to have fewer kids, bear down, and get them some education, some economic opportunity. Women become important, powerful creatures in the slums. They're often the ones running the community-based organizations, and they're considered the most reliable recipients of microfinance loans."

• Regular readers of Web Monitor will remember it previously mentioning a study charting the spread of cupcake shops across New York. Now that the cupcake is taking over the baklawah in the Middle East, with cupcake bakeries opening everywhere from Tel Aviv, Beirut to Dubai.

Where did this cupcake madness start? the craze down to one TV show:

"Americans can never understand just how popular Sex and the City was with Israelis, Palestinians and Egyptians. I grew up in New York City and nearly every woman I've spent time here [Beersheva, Israel] with has asked me about that show. Inevitably, they would mention the cupcakes."

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