The Gideon Bible hotel monopoly is over

I think we all have grown accustomed to seeing that ubiquitous Gideon Bible in the nightstand drawer at every hotel we've stayed at over the course of our lives, along with the local Yellow Pages. It's just one of those things I've never questioned, just accepted as a normal practice.

Well, a boutique hotel in Tennessee is changing things up a bit. The Hotel Preston near the Nashville airport, owned by Oregon-based Provenance Hotels, will now offer a "spiritual menu" through room service:

A team of Provenance managers came up with the spiritual menu's lineup, Nishioka said, which will feature the King James Version of the Bible and the New American Bible, the Torah, the Quran, the Tao Te Ching, The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, the Book of Mormon, books on Scientology and Bhagavad Gita, a sacred Hindu text.

I have to admit it's a novel approach, and one that I really can't complain about. It's not being PC, but rather acknowledging that not everyone is Christian, and offering spiritual reading for all travelers. It's a heap better than travelers spending their time downloading porn or watching Skinamax, don't you think?

I loolered at some of the other offerings provided by the hotel:

visitors to the 200-room hotel are offered complimentary pet fish, rubber duckies and lava lamps for their rooms, as well as a pillow menu. Most recently, as part of a living art display, Hotel Preston began hiring young women to take turns wearing pink lingerie and living in a glass-plated mock hotel room in a corner of the hotel's cocktail lounge.

Okay, so maybe lingerie models are stretching good taste just a bit...