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Anne McElderry Jacobs, who worked with The Arc of Baltimore, formerly the Baltimore Association for Retarded Citizens, died of liver failure yesterday at Cromwell Center-Genesis ElderCare in Towson. She was 45. Miss Jacobs was born in Washington. Because she suffered from hydrocephalus, she lived for more than 15 years at Rosewood State Hospital, now Rosewood Center, in Owings Mills. Since 1980, Miss Jacobs had lived in group homes managed by The Arc of Baltimore. At her death, she was living in a group residence in Timonium.

An 11-year-old Baltimore County boy who was on safari in Botswana was killed Tuesday by a hyena that attacked him inside his tent, a U.S. State Department official said yesterday. Mark Garrity Shea of Brooklandville was traveling with his mother on their second visit to Botswana in two years when the attack occurred, said the official, who had few specifics about the incident. The boy, who was known as Garrit to his classmates, was a pupil at Fort Garrison Elementary School in Baltimore County.

JOE STERNE NO LONGER works here. Come July 1, his name disappears from the editorial-page masthead. After 44 years at this newspaper -- 25 of them as editor of this page and the one opposite -- Mr. Sterne retires at age 69.That is big news for those of us inside this grand institution. But for most of our newspaper's readers, the end of the Sterne era doesn't hold much meaning. Their lives will go on much as before. Yet Joseph Robert Livingston Sterne had an impact far greater than readers would suspect -- on this city, this region and this state.

MY BROTHER in pontification, Edward Grimsley, the editorial-page editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, has come up with the outrageous theory that because West Germany has annexed East Germany there is no reason why East Virginia should not annex West Virginia.This is the kind of statement one might expect from the spokesman for a rogue state bent on expansion. But Ed's analogy is all wrong. In the post-Cold War era, as the Gulf crisis proves so well, the world has to be on guard against regional powers trying to gobble up poor defenseless neighbors.

IT WAS THE TV talker Chris Matthews, I believe, who first labeled Democrats and Republicans the "Mommy Party" and the "Daddy Party." Archaic as these stereotypes may be, they do capture general attitudes about the two parties. But we live in the age of the one-parent family, and it is Mom, more often than Dad, who must play both roles. It has not escaped notice that the Daddy Party has been fiscally misbehaving. But it hasn't really sunk in how completely the Republicans have abandoned allegedly Republican values - if, in fact, they ever really had such values.

Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage, by Philip Taubman. Simon & Schuster. 464 pages. $27. It is hard to imagine a more bleak and dangerous world than the one Dwight Eisenhower faced when he became president in 1953. The United States was bogged down in a land war in Korea. Russia was ruled by a paranoid tyrant who not only possessed the atomic bomb but the missiles to deliver it as well. America was gripped by a growing anxiety -- not entirely unfounded -- that a "missile gap" made the country vulnerable to instantaneous annihilation.

THE "TAKINGS" clause of the Fifth Amendment is for conservatives what the "equal protection" clause of the 14th is for liberals. It wouldn't be fair to say that conservatives cherish property the way liberals cherish equality. But it would be fair to say that the "takings" clause is the conservative recipe for judicial activism - imposing their agenda through the courts, rather than bothering with democracy - the way they say liberals have misused the equal protection clause. Of course, conservatives always claim to be against judicial activism.

AMERICAN DEMOCRACY is a conspiracy of special interests against the general interest, but every special interest thinks that it is the general interest. Journalists often see this firsthand. Belief in journalism is not widespread in the general population these days. People think journalists are biased, that they make things up, that they are arrogant, self-involved and self-important. But the folks who become journalists are more likely to regard journalism as a noble calling that serves the nation, its values and the world.

Dean L. Minnich, a former editor and veteran columnist at Carroll County Times, will run for county commissioner this year. "My focus will be on quality of life issues," he said. "We need people who can insist on taking the longer view, on controlling growth and ensuring that we have adequate schools, roads and all public facilities in general." Although Minnich, 59, is running as a Republican in a Republican-dominated county, he described himself as an alternative to Carroll's current leadership.

To our readers In December, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s staff gave The Sun a list of nearly two dozen grievances with the newspaper's coverage of his administration. The list was provided about one month after the governor banned state executive branch employees from speaking with two Sun journalists -- a prohibition that is still in effect today. The list was given to executives of The Sun at an off-the-record meeting to discuss the governor's concerns and the ban. To honor our commitment to the governor, The Sun has not released the list or details of our conversation at that meeting.