foundation
Last Nov. 4, I made reference to an article in the sci-fi zine Ansible about the title of Asimov's Foundation being translated to Arabic as "Al-Qaeda." The potential significance of this discovery first sprung from a Russian sci-fi website (!) in October (article here). I followed that up two days later with comments from a Jordanian journalist. Then, a couple weeks ago, I received an email from a journalist at The Guardian named Giles (this seemed noteworthy to me: a journalist from England named Giles -- of course!), asking about the connection. I put him in contact with the Jordanian acquantance. And now, his article has just come out in The Guardian. I highly recommend you read it, not only because it's a fascinating tale of language and literature and terror, but also because I feel as though I'm a very small part of this whole epic, like a lesser monk in an Umberto Eco story. (Late add: Colin Brayton, a blogger and Arabic speaker, has a strongly worded critique of this connection.)
