Patch# 1258 by Christian Heimes: kill basestring.
I like this because it makes the code shorter! :-)
diff --git a/Lib/distutils/dir_util.py b/Lib/distutils/dir_util.py
index 30e352d..1f0d49c 100644
--- a/Lib/distutils/dir_util.py
+++ b/Lib/distutils/dir_util.py
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@
     global _path_created
 
     # Detect a common bug -- name is None
-    if not isinstance(name, basestring):
+    if not isinstance(name, str):
         raise DistutilsInternalError(
               "mkpath: 'name' must be a string (got %r)" % (name,))