Blue_Vision

This seems to be a relatively common issue in Python: you want to have a nice flexible API which can either accept a single argument, or multiple arguments in the form of a list. But, since strings are iterable (and iterating through them returns strings), the Pythonic Ask for Forgiveness Rather than Permission style doesn't seem to immediately work, since trying to iterate through your argument will work without error, whether you're being passed a collection or just a single string.

The best solution I know of is to just type check your arguments with a isinstance(foo, basestring) (as described in [this stack overflow question](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/922774/check-if-input

I know there has been discussion about the mistakes Rand made regarding the Asha'man (and being a dick to them and everyone he interacts with in general), but I'm having trouble understanding why he or anyone thinks they would be in any way trustworthy at all. Right from the get go, pretty much nobody trust Taim, and that trust should be totally gone when he M'Hael-ifies himself. But what binds any particular Asha'man to Rand at all? All he did was pop into the Black Tower once and hand out some trinkets, and that's pretty much the only interaction he's had with the institution (y'know, other than leading a ton of them to anonymous deaths and being a dick to the few he does see).

Am I mis