Unicode error with TurboGears and Oracle

Thanks to kap_ravi's comment, I tracked down a surprisingly big and poorly-documented stumbling block for folks using TG with Oracle.

I've updated the original TG+Oracle blog post to reflect it, but the gist of it is that you're likely to get

SQLError: (NotSupportedError) Variable_TypeByValue(): unhandled data
type unicode

errors unless you include

sqlalchemy.convert_unicode = True

in your .cfg files.

Configuring Oracle for proper Unicode use may avoid the need for this; I'm not sure. My dreadfully mononational working environment has prevented me from developing any Unicode experience.