I live in Cincinnati. I was graduated by Princeton University and Ohio State Law School. I have lived in Miami, Atlanta and Portsmouth, Ohio. My children have lived in Colorado, San Diego, and Charleston, S.C. My job has required me to travel to and acquaint myself with nearly every locale in our country.

That predicate is necessary to understand my objections to Kathleen Parker's column titled "Sorry, S.C.: Y'all are a one-nighter" (Jan. 31). For every "gap-toothed Dude" living in South Carolina (actually, the South, but Parker chose to focus her regional condescension on that state), there is an Arnold Schwarzenegger and a David Letterman. For every "Huntin' Dude" there is a man in another state who celebrates the beginning of deer season. I do not know where she discovered "Diddy's Grandiddy," but she did not discover it in traditional dialects of the South. Her metaphor and her analogy virtually disappeared Lincolnesque scores of years ago, and do not remotely reflect present attitudes.

She could not stop herself. The "plucky Southern Belle" was highlighted and gained the favor of her sarcasm because she is a committed mother, unfettered by doubts about her self-worth, as was her most creative creature, the 35-year-old grandmother who gives an honest day's labor, hoping she will be rewarded proportionately. Next came the "lifeless Confederate rag." Finally, before exhausting her ignorance and prejudice, Parker summoned enough breath to unequivocally opine, "most South Carolinians were seeking indoor heat sources rather than re-enacting Civil War battles and sporting aborted-fetus lapel pins, as they usually do." Really? I, for one, never noticed them being worn any more often than in any other state. I did not know it was part of the South Carolinian dress code.

The balance of her column was barely understandable, because the premises were so flawed.

People who inherited wealth from "slave-holding plantation owners" are a rapidly disappearing progeny. So are the sons and daughters of bootleggers, cattle barons, Mafiosos, and oil and steel magnates. This event traverses the entire United States, and is not an anomaly peculiar to the South. I suggest Parker quickly learn that for sarcasm to be relevant, it must be based on present-day attitudes, not worn-out caricatures. She should salute our commonality rather than disparage and ridicule our regional differences.

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Michael S. Duty, of Mount Lookout, is an independent businessman.

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