We are accustomed to hearing about violence and instability in Pakistan, yet it remains a faraway place to most Americans. Yet what if Pakistan was home and its violence and uncertainty were part of the fabric of your life? And what if that violence one day claimed someone close to you? As a writer and as a Pakistani, Aatish Taseer has struggled all his life to understand his relationship with his country, with his ethnic homeland Punjab, and with his politically prominent father Salman Taseer, the governor of Pakistan's Punjab province. A year ago this week his father was assassinated just as he was finishing his first novel "Noon." 

All this week, in honor of Independence Day, we're airing a series of reports titled My America. We'll be speaking to leading figures in politics, culture, media and the arts, and we're asking what being American means to them. We've also had quite a few listeners — as well as our producers and hosts — weigh in! 

It's been over ten years since The New Yorker published its "20 Under 40" list of promising writers. The last edition featured stories by David Foster Wallace, Michael Chabon, Jeffrey Eugenides, Jhumpa Lahiri and 16 others, many of whom continue to write acclaimed fiction. After a long selection process, the new issue hits newsstands today, full of prose and promise.

The Takeaway talks to two movie critics about the anti-blockbuster movies of the summer, particularly foreign films. We talk about the British film "In the Loop," described as a combination of the West Wing and The Office, and "A Woman in Berlin," about a rape victim during the Red Army occupation. The two film critics joining The Takeaway this morning are A. O. Scott, film critic for The New York Times, and Wesley Morris, film critic for the Boston Globe.

Watch the trailer for In the Loop below.



And here's the trailer for A Woman in Berlin.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress asked eighth graders across the country in 2008 a series of questions on music and visual art. The results of that test, revealed on Monday, may be disappointing to some.

Some of the questions asked were:

•Identify form of musical examples as theme and variations.

•Identify pitch contour of melody in a recording

•Identify an example of 20th-century western art

•Identify compositional emphasis in a Bearden collage

•Identify a compositional feature of a medieval artwork

Could you answer these questions? The previous test in 1997 revealed low scores, and the 2008 results are even lower. Is cultural literacy being lost? Joining us on the show is Richard Kessler, executive director of the Center for Arts Education. Also joining the conversation is Emily Downs, an art teacher for elementary school kids in New Jersey.

During the Vietnam War, the directors of the museum in Hanoi decided to hide their nation's valuable art work to keep it safe from the war. But they wanted to maintain their cultural pride. So they came up with an ingenious plan: hide the originals and fill the museum with well-crafted copies or forgeries. Now, curators at the Museum of Fine Arts in Hanoi have found that their walls are still covered with fakes. Where are the originals? We turn to Lawrence Pollard, BBC arts correspondent.

This week, New York City hosts the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, a showcase for best of the best of each breed of dog. But how breeders create those perfect dogs is the subject of much debate and a new documentary by our partners at the BBC is adding flames to the fire. In fact, their research was so provocative that it prompted big changes at the British Kennel Club. Producer Jemima Harrison joins us to explain why what makes for best in show could be the worst for dogs.

For more, turn to the BBC's report documenting how the methods used to produce breeds like the King Charles spaniel, boxers and pugs could cause debilitating inherited genetic problems for the dogs. Watch here.

Then to cheer yourself up a bit, watch this:

In 1996 Barack and Michelle Obama were interviewed and photographed for a book on couples in America. The pictures didn’t make it into the book and they were filed away in photographer Mariana Cook’s studio until this week, when one of them appeared in The New Yorker. Photographer and writer Mariana Cook joins Adaora and Todd to talk about the interview and discuss her images.