In the midst of Carnival celebrations and commentary about the Snub, it was a question looming over much Louisiana coverage of President Bush’s final State of the Union address: Will he mention Katrina?

To a certain extent, this is yet one more sign of a state that still feels crippled following the 2005 storms, even if the signs of life are far more numerous and heartening than any member of the national media would like to mention. Despite a population rebound that would have been utterly lambasted in the months immediately following the hurricane, despite statewide economic growth that has stayed afloat beyond pojections, despite an upswell in community activism, the state of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans still project an image of beggaring for scraps at the far end of the table.

And why not? The signs are there if you’d like to look for them. Louisiana’s Congressional delegation is alternately wracked with scandal, facing an electoral onslaught, and just too fun-lovin’ to actually get anything done. Everybody else is packing up and heading home. We’ve got a brand-new, untested governor, who just in the past week has shown that his centerpiece agenda, ethics reform, might not be important enough to merit its own filing cabinet. We’ve got an economy based on industries that came the way of the dinosaur and are increasingly returning to their natural state. Finally, we have had seismic demographic shifts and the public perception of a vast accumulation of wreckage that seems to have supplanted the idea of the City of New Orleans with this. And why not throw in a much ballyhooed lawsuit?

Yet, when it comes right down to it, why should a state’s collective political leadership decide to prostrate itself upon the altar of aid when it could be grabbing the mantle of (here it comes again you political types) change? While many in the state blame industry for degrading storm-buffering wetlands, most have rejected the populist economic solution proposed by former gubernatorial candidate Foster Campbell while multiple other solutions are allowed to languish. Partially this can be chalked up to a desire to cling to the lifeblood of Southeast Louisiana’s economy for nearly a century: oil. But at a time when domestic energy creation and “green” energy is at a premium, shouldn’t the one state in the Union most damaged by the old industry leap forward with some new proposals? Biomass, solar rebuilding, and offshore wind all are touted as promising without receiving a lot of serious attention from Louisiana legislators. In other areas, left-field but intriguing ideas such as deregulating devastated neighborhoods like the Lower Ninth Ward have been brushed aside (if they were ever truly considered, which is doubtful).

And instead, everyone gets excited about this:

Tonight the armies of compassion continue the march to a new day in the Gulf Coast. America honors the strength and resilience of the people of this region. We reaffirm our pledge to help them build stronger and better than before. And tonight I'm pleased to announce that in April we will host this year's North American Summit of Canada, Mexico, and the United States in the great city of New Orleans. (Applause.)

…for some reason.

Well, perhaps not everyone. But if our folks are going to keep talking up secession, then we’re going to need a better idea than “Throw me something, mister!”