title: Python Unicode Warning: Unicode equal comparison failed to convert both arguments to Unicode
body: <p>I'm pretty sure this is occurring in the portion of my code where I go to plot text:</p>
  
  <pre><code>xlows = x[local_min]; xhighs = x[local_max]
  ylows = y[local_min]; yhighs = y[local_max]
  lowvals = prmsl[local_min]; highvals = prmsl[local_max]
  # plot lows as blue L's, with min pressure value underneath.
  xyplotted = []
  # don't plot if there is already a L or H within dmin meters.
  yoffset = 0.022*(m.ymax-m.ymin)
  dmin = yoffset
  for x,y,p in zip(xlows, ylows, lowvals):
      if x &lt; m.xmax and x &gt; m.xmin and y &lt; m.ymax and y &gt; m.ymin:
          dist = [np.sqrt((x-x0)**2+(y-y0)**2) for x0,y0 in xyplotted]
          if not dist or min(dist) &gt; dmin:
              plt.text(x,y,'L',fontsize=14,fontweight='bold',
                      ha='center',va='center',color='b')
              plt.text(x,y-yoffset,repr(int(p)),fontsize=9,
                      ha='center',va='top',color='b',
                      bbox = dict(boxstyle="square",ec='None',fc=(1,1,1,0.5)))
              xyplotted.append((x,y))
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>My source code is similar to <a href="http://matplotlib.org/basemap/users/examples.html" rel="nofollow">this example</a> third one down from the top.</p>
  
  <p>The Traceback:</p>
  
  <pre><code>/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/text.py:53: UnicodeWarning: Unicode equal comparison failed to convert both arguments to Unicode - interpreting them as being unequal
    if rotation in ('horizontal', None):
  /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/text.py:55: UnicodeWarning: Unicode equal comparison failed to convert both arguments to Unicode - interpreting them as being unequal
    elif rotation == 'vertical':
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I did a print of the rotation values:</p>
  
  <pre><code>None
  None
  None
  None
  None
  None
  None
  None
  32.5360682877
  /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/text.py:53: UnicodeWarning: Unicode equal comparison failed to convert both arguments to Unicode - interpreting them as being unequal
    if rotation in ('horizontal', None):
  /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/text.py:55: UnicodeWarning: Unicode equal comparison failed to convert both arguments to Unicode - interpreting them as being unequal
    elif rotation == 'vertical':
  32.5360682877
  25.1125465842
  25.1125465842
  2.90036159155
  2.90036159155
  43.6364736689
  43.6364736689
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I'm not sure why this error is occurring.</p>